How Far to Paradise
by lord admiral belisarius
Summary: It is human to yearn for happiness; but many people are alone in a dark place. They see others partaking in the fruits of happiness while their own mouths are filled with ashes. Issei Hyoudou is one such person until he finds a light in the dark and starts on the long road to paradise. It is a road of bizarre twists and turns, but every treacherous step is worth the struggle.
1. Prelude

Before I begin, I would like to offer a special thanks to my beta reader, Blake Zephyr, for bearing with my rambling PMs at awful hours; Touhou Ranfuku for his expertise on DxD which has saved me some characterization woes; and for a certain real life friend whose brainstorming sessions and oft-acerbic encouragement were instrumental in formulating this story. Finally, I would like to thank anyone who stops by to read the prelude. It's a decidedly different take on Highschool DxD, and I hope that this both provides a helpful insight and somewhat softens the blow.

* * *

_Prelude_

"Can you buy a man with suffering?"

This question is famously posed at the beginning of Robert Bolt's play 'A Man for All Seasons.' Richard Rich's elaboration, that one tortures a man and offers release, makes it not nearly as profound a statement as it could be. But can you buy a man with suffering?

What is suffering? Is life itself suffering? Every slouching step does bring us closer to gloomy death, like a candle that has burnt to its end. By having been lighted – by having been given life – the end is inevitable. We suffer. Our minds suffer. Our bodies suffer. If existence were entirely suffering, it would not matter. Without any benchmark, it would be impossible to compare our suffering against happiness or even recognize happiness. But we know happiness. We have a tacit awareness of some perfect happiness, of Paradise, that both allows suffering because our human condition does not permit us to know Paradise and brings up hope in the assurance of its existence. This concept of happiness, or truth, or love transcends the physical. A spiritual reality.

But can you buy a man with suffering? In Richard Rich's superficial way, certainly. However, there are other ways to buy a man with suffering. Consider the life of St. Ignatius of Loyola. In his younger years, he could have been described as a devout sinner. All it took was being brought to the lowest of lows for him to embrace a devout life. This is how a man is bought with suffering. When the spirits that cause evil to be received as water on a sponge, and good as water on a rock are purged from the soul. When we recognize darkness, we better appreciate light. And sometimes, one must hit the bottom of the well to truly understand the darkness.

This is merely one hermaneutic through which the matters that follow may be viewed.


	2. The Way I Am

_Chapter 1: The Way I Am_

Shit. Goddamn. I wake up in a bathtub covered in confetti, pants wet and smelling of urine and sour beer, and nursing a headache like a rail spike being pounded through my head. Fuck. What time is it? Saturday morning, of course. Party didn't get started until midnight anyway. No way I got lucky last night with any of the deliciously writhing flesh on display. I crawl out of the bath, bang my head on the medicine cabinet and take a good look at myself. I, Hyoudou Issei, am fucked up. No excuses here. I smile at myself, and step out of the bathroom. I'm not alone. A few others are snoozing, smelling of whiskey and sex. I notice a pair of panties in the corner, a teeny-tiny, scandalous, black thong from someone whom I did not bang.

"God, how did this happen?" I mutter as I stagger out the door into bright sunlight. I make my way to the bike and ride along the busy road home as the memories, one by one, flow back in disjointed order like the scattered pieces of the jigsaw puzzle. Nothing is lonelier than the sound of other people rutting. Can't even call it making love at this point. It stings like an arrow through the heart, an oddly specific notion.

I look down and consider, almost musingly, the irony that there is, in fact, an arrow lodged in my body and that it is, in fact, lodged through my heart. For a moment, my thoughts flash into the stream of "Well, this is certainly more interesting than wallowing in the misery that my only lover is my hand..." before trailing as I realize that there is a fucking arrow through my fucking heart. Quite naturally, I contort and claw at my breast. Get it out! Get it out! Quite naturally, I topple over and bring the bike crashing down on my legs, injecting the molten iron of pain through my body. The humor is not lost on me, that the arrow through my heart is not the thing bringing me agony. As I write in pain, quite unlike the lovely devil-angels occupying my beer goggles last night, cars blow past my head, wheels mere inches from that vulnerable noggin. Cantaloupe, meet sledgehammer.

Not my head! Not my head!

After some time, I get up. Everything still hurts, but I must go forward. It won't be pretty, but I have to face the music at home. Goddamn, my shit is fucked up. I look like I've been in a knife fight at this point. I could very well be concussed and not thinking straight, but I probably wasn't thinking straight to begin with. My shit is doubly fucked up, but how does one measure degrees of fucked? I chuckle at my pointlessly profane sentence construction. Breaking the taboo is the fun part of the whole matter. In that light, my motivations for ditching my friends last night for a chance at sweet, drunken pussy are patently obvious. Breaking curfew, breaking friendships, breaking the law, and breaking underage hymens (though I'd contend that were very few of those last night) all have a dark allure.

I'm a teenage dirtbag. By this point, just about everyone knows that I'm a teenage dirtbag. I'd busted my ass to get into Kuoh. How many sleepless nights did I spend, sweating from the stress at two in the morning, studying until I couldn't see clearly to get in? Otaku, they said. Pervert, they said. Going nowhere fast, they said. The first two might be have been (and, if I were an honest man, still are) true. What the fuck was I thinking? That I, with no fulfilling relationships, not even the fleshy pleasures of an emotionally corrosive tryst, would somehow rise above my middle school reputation to nail sluts, preferably my own little slut who was the very image of innocence to the rest of the world. It was all bullshit I sold myself, and I ended up hanging out with the same sad men I'd always hung out with...

Choo-choo goes the self-pity train, fueled by self loathing. I'd like to get off on the stop marked 'THE PRESENT,' thank you very much. It's hard to take that last step off the platform.

Facing the music wasn't so bad as I thought it would be. Genuine concern over my injuries. Mock concern, mock judgment of my nighttime activities, but I think we all know the truth. I'm not going anywhere. What's there left to look forward to? A few years of oblivion similar to last night in college and then the soul-deadening crush of a salaryman's life. Maybe it would be worthwhile if I could frame such as a life as providing for a wife and children; then it would be okay. Then it would be worthwhile, but I don't even have that. Objectively, I'm an abject failure with girls. So, without even that to anchor me down, I might as well get a head start on my slow, spiraling slide into indifferent oblivion. The end. Welcome to the toilet of my future and the life of so many other herbivore men.

But, by God did I feel alive last night! Vibrant sparks of life outpouring themselves for the most tangible earthly pleasures! I didn't get what I wanted (sex; I've pretty much given up on the whole soulmate thing), but it struck a chord in my heart that cut through all the fog in my brain and ignited some passion hidden the depths of my id. I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

I go to my bedroom, change, and crawl into bed. I can feel a weakness through bones, like very blood vessel in my body is bruised. I break out into a sweat. I barely manage to get out and shower before crawling right back into bed. I suddenly clutch at my heart. There's no arrow, or even the remnants of such a wound. I collapse back under the sheets, soaking them with sweat and breathing with a tongue the size of an ox's, and fall asleep. I dream of a strange forms, forms like a proud suit of Gothic armor warped by Pablo Picasso's paintbrush.

When I wake up, I decide that I have clearly had a religious experience. It's too personal and earthly for the Buddhists to be any help, so I decide that the Christians might have a better explanation. I decide to go to eight o' clock mass on a Sunday.

I feel trapped in the confessional. It's clean enough, well maintained, and private; it's even thoroughly modern, covered from floor to ceiling with what looks like a cheap kind of carpeting material. Issei Hyoudou, interior director. Now there's a joke. I still feel like I'm trapped with a predator as I sit with the priest, a prematurely graying young man who told me to call him "Father Freed." We just sit there in silence. My heart says that we sit like the cat and the canary. I am, of course, the canary. Meaningless. Empty. Irrational. There's no reason for me to suspect him. He must have heard so many confessions of deeds far wilder than my pathetic teenage wasteland.

"Child," he asked, "Are you baptized?"

I honestly admit that I am not, inhaling with my tongue between my teeth in my nervousness and flashing a grin faker than a politician's promise.

"There is, you know, no salvation outside the Church."

I'm almost left reeling it utter shock, like he'd just dropped a hand grenade in the room. His face suddenly looks very punchable.

He laughs, maybe contemptuously. I don't know.

"Slow down, slow down. That doesn't mean it will be sacramental. I'll even swear an oath that this remains between you and me. It's a great purgative experience, even if you're a dirty atheist, heretic, or pagan," he says with a mischievous glimmer in his eyes. I chuckle.

What kind of man is he? I just can't read him. I might be an idiot, but I have some ability to judge character. I hold back my frown as Freed swears to his god that this conversation will be between the three of us. A confession. We just sit there in the dim confessional.

"Well?" he asks, almost enthusiastic but restrained.

"Well, where do I even begin?"

"From the beginning of course? As John says: 'In the beginning there was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.'"

I brace myself for a lecture about a book I've never read. Who the hell is John, anyway? Is he some famous priest? Fuck it, I still want to go through with this. I don't even believe this shit, but just being able to fucking talk is like a breath of fresh air. Fresh air for some dying Frenchman fumbling with a crude gas mask, stuck in a trench with no way out. A life's confession, what a novel concept. God, does it hurt. Every word, every wrongdoing, is like tearing off a bandage. By this point, I have enough for a full body cast. It fucking hurts. My avarice, my greed, my pride. My lusts. I'm opening my heart to a damn stranger.

Father Freed just listens, understanding but almost pleased. What kind of pleasure is he feeling? My life's confession seems to last for hours. The ugly walls seem to fade away. The movement of my watch becomes meaningless. Click, click, click. Like a metronome. It's just me and him, suspended in a void. It's hypnotic and beautiful. I finally finish. Tick, tock, tick.

"I can't actually absolve you, you know," he says, breaking the stasis.

"That's okay," I tell him after some deliberation.

"What are you? Are you pagan, heretic, or atheist?"

"The first and last like most Japanese people," I say unapologetically.

Father Freed snorts, closes his eyes, and smiles like a shark.

"We all have our faults, but only a few sins permanently sever your connection with God. For you, that would most likely be despair. You hate yourself and your sins too much to fall into presumption. No, not despair... definitely not despair. There's something more that I hope I can see tested."

"Why?"

He smiles. This time, it's kindly.

"Did you know?" he said, going off into another topic, "That the greatest saints were often the greatest sinners. Augustine, for example, spent his youth whoring, stealing, generally being a little shit - a smart-ass little shit."

"So, how'd he stop?"

"He had a change of heart. Most don't; that's why he's a saint. Most people are stuck on a boat with one paddle, circling around and around in ever-narrowing rings until they're dead in the water."

He chuckles as if he's made a joke. Then Father Freed makes the sign of the cross.

"Go in peace to love and serve the Lord. I hope we can meet again."

I step out of the confessional, at once confused and relieved. The rose-tinted lights falls on me and I spread out my arms to absorb it like I'm in some sort of melodramatic movie. I hear my feet clop across the empty stone floor as I make my way past cold pews. The sound pulses off into the dusty corners. The church takes on a different character without its flock. It's too spooky for me. I stop myself at the threshold. I don't want to leave. In that moment apart from time, I was at peace. What's left for me out there? Am I getting back on that damn boat? I hate it. Maybe I'd be a good man if I could just sit in a tube somewhere, cut off from my senses.

I step out.

"I didn't know you went to Church, Issei?"

A girl. A lovely girl who knows my name, not rejecting me. Not reminding me of just how broken and pathetic I am, even by silence. I smile and try not to cry. Tears of joy, that is.

"Hello, fancy seeing you here, um," I say, cursing myself that I can't remember this raven-haired beauty's name. I've seen her around school. I've probably wanked to her. Fuck.

"Yuuma, Yuuma Amano. Don't you remember me?"

Of course. She looks so different now, wearing a tan cardigan with a purple-striped sundress. I can see her now in the school uniform. Never took her to be churchgoing type, but even I came occasionally (for the first time).

"I do. I just didn't recognize you dressed like that."

She does a little twirl that highlights the creamy expanse of her long legs as she steps daintily with her black espadrilles. My rational mind screams at me to give her a backhanded compliment, to touch her, to do everything I'd seen those guys doing last night. To what end? So I could fuck her. But I can't. Here, now, if I could even pull it off, it would break my newly mended heart.

The images come against my will. Touching her, kissing her, stripping her down. Even the most innocent glance starts this process. I close my eyes for a moment, and all I can see is myself pulling down her panties. Not now! Bending her over. Shit! Why? Taking her right there. And I hate it. I hate it. I can't stop these sordid images from playing in my mind.

"Do you like it?"

"I do. It flatters you. It really does."

She smiles cutely. God, why? All I want is happiness. Here, the closest I've been to that simple, romantic pleasure that I pedestalized, that I built a fence around, that I deified, all I can think of that harsh reality. I saw that reality last night. I've seen it for years. I want to laugh and cry pathetic, pathetic tears. A world of laughter, a world of tears.

She takes my hand and leads me to the bike rack. I can feel my heart beat in a polyrhythm with my watch. Yuuma, in this instant, is like a light in the black. A spark of life. She pulls me in close, so close that we are bound at the hips. I can smell the fruity perfume on her. What does she smell from me? Misery? Vomit? Sweat? Beer?. It can't be anything good. I look into her big, soulful eyes; and I feel damned. I don't deserve anything this good, but God do I want it.

"I don't mean to be so sudden, Issei, but I think that you're my type of guy. I don't care what the rumors say."

She faintly blushes as she declares that she likes me (but the rumors are true, my dear). This shit is like a bad shoujo manga, but it feels so damn good. Fuck, I don't even need love. I, with a growing strength, wrap my arms around her and draw her close.

"I'm glad you do," I say with an uncharacteristic debonair flair. I sure as hell don't feel cool.

I just hold her there and feel her warmth, her softness, her everything seeping into me. I'm like a starving man who has just sat down to a banquet. I finally block off those lustful thoughts and enjoy this moment. She isn't afraid; rather, she leans into me. I feel everything about her, and she just accepts me.

After so many years. So many wasted years. What have I done? Shut up.

Everything you wanted is here Issei, you idiot.

I could almost cry, but I can't be weak like that. Not here, not now. For now, it's just me and Yuuma. For a timeless second, the cruel world of this sick, sad millennium is gone. I'll never forget this. Not until I'm dead and gone.

We finally break apart.

"I didn't know you felt like that, Issei," she says, "I'm free tomorrow after school; maybe we could-"

I shush her.

"It's a date."

The golden day passed quickly, as though the world had slowed down. Motohama and Matsuda had noticed something different about me. I did not mention anything about the weekend to them, not the party, not the arrow, and surely not Yuuma. They were just as lost and pathetic as me, and the news that I had a date would have been taken as a betrayal. It was. The only binder of our gouache was the lonely misery to which all herbivore otaku were privy. I would have expected that any of them, in my situation, would have ditched the rest. Such are the beasts we are, so desperate for scraps that we'll devour our own and make a stairway from their corpses. That's what I'm doing. I never liked them, but we had a camaraderie as misfits. Was that esprit de corps false? No, it was the happiness of a common goal; without that common ground, it dissipated like mists under the scorching sun.

Abandoning them to the wolves hurt far more than I thought it would.

Once the day ended in the orange rays of the pleasant afternoon glow, Yuuma accosted me in full view of the two, asking if I'd decided on a location for our date. I wanted to make it a 'don't let the door hit your ass on the way out' affair, but I couldn't bring myself to do that. God, all I wanted was to enjoy some tangible happiness! I smile and wave, and they do likewise. Hurt. They hurt. I hurt Motohama and Matsuda. I don't want much, and I wasn't getting what I wanted with them.

Something tugged on my heartstrings. Something foreign but not entirely anathema.

Not doubt. I wasn't suspending judgment on anything.

"I have. There's a great little coffee shop I know. They grind it by hand and brew in a press. It's the best coffee I've had in this city."

It was also quite pricey for coffee. Well, I take that back. It cost as much as a specialty, froo-froo drink from certain franchises. Also, they brewed Turkish coffee. They were the only ones in town who did, and it was there that I'd first been introduced to the method.

We biked together to the shop, "Crazy Hassan's Half-Price Hot Pot." Goofy name, great coffee. I've spent quite a bit of time and money here. When I walk in, the staff see me and immediately start making the Turkish coffee I order every time.

"A whole pot, please," I say, gathering a few extra bills and gesturing at Yuuma to the barista.

We soon sit down with the various vessels of Turkish coffee and a few pastries. She eats in an effortlessly cultured manner that I couldn't manage even if I tried.

"I hate to be egocentric," I say, "but what do you like about me?"

She looks me in the eyes and giggles.

"It's not answering you question, but-"

"Oh, 'it isn't,' is it?"

"I first heard about you through all those nasty rumors."

"What about them?" I ask, trying not to sound glum.

"There's definitely some kernel of truth to them, but you seemed so smart and driven from my overlooking view. I wanted to learn more about you, the real Issei."

Is this the real Issei? I hope so, but there's something dark crawling inside of me. I focus on the sweetness of the coffee rather than on her. Maybe she can see it. Maybe she can't. I hope she does and can accept it, or help me let it out constructively.

"Do you like what you see?" I ask, almost suggestively.

"I don't know. I haven't seen it."

There was more to that. An unspoken "But I want to."

"In time, Yuuma. I barely know you."

She smiles and brings her lips to my ear.

She whispers, "Let's go to the park. I want to make our first kiss special."

I don't understand. I've done nothing. I'm put on guard. There's no such thing as a free lunch, damnit. Even in– Fuck, I hate this. Even in romance.

I think can't believe that I've never paid much mind to the park before. We rode our bikes through the poplar-lined path until we came to the fountain, where many young couples have dropped 5-yen coins for good luck. Some are bright and shiny, others covered by a patina of verdigris. We walk hand in hand, almost like a couple strolling down the aisle. There's something I don't like. I cast it aside as the mere anxieties of a kissless virgin.

She kisses me deeply, and I'm taken aback before I fight back. I feel so close to her, as if all barriers are broken down. It was the best kiss I've ever had. My first, outside chaste kisses with my parents and relatives.

"And it will be your last. It's been a pleasure," says Yuuma.

Then she transforms into a monster.

I thrust her away and scramble back as I watch this transformation. Her clothes melt off like tar, leaving her nude before me until the black ropes snap taut. Seductive. Punishment. Black wings of death sprout from her back.

"Before you die, I wanted to leave you with a good memory."

A spear of light coalesces in her hand.

The animal hindbrain was right. Here be dragons.

I run. I'll die here, but I'll be damned if I don't take every measure possible to save my life.

Pain. An immense agony shoots through my heart, not in the form of that spear the monster I called Yuuma Amano wields. I see the outline of an arrowhead, still lodged in my body. I feel something coming. Something big. Something dark. Something powerful. Something shady.

I look over my shoulder and see the spear coming towards me. Coming in for the kill. Execution. I dive into the shade of a poplar tree with a speed I didn't know I possessed, and I dive into the shadow.

I'm alone in inky blackness. Am I dead? My heart still beats (and furiously). Nor am I alone. There's a friend here. The darkness parts until I am faced with a figure that stands by me. He's tall and lanky, and looks like a dated salaryman in his grey flannel suit. But that's it. The rest is darkness. Darkness of a perceptibly different texture than the rest. My friend.

Slim Shady.

And I'm out, finally able to breath again. Air, real air, almost sears my throat. I look up through tear-blurred eyes and see her. She observes from a domineering view on her black wings.

Slim Shady rises out of my shadow to place a supportive hand on my shoulder. I don't understand it, but I'll use it to survive. No, to win. I have to get closer.

To do what? To kill her?

I crouch and hustle across the killing ground to the next shadow, into which I dive, followed by a volley of explosive lances whose splinters of shrapnel tear through my flimsy school uniform. I hit the ground running from the next shadow, a little closer. The monster is looking the wrong way. Slim Shady is no longer by my side, instead rushing into battle. His weightless form emerges from the shadows cast by the wings on her back. His hands. My hands. Wrap around her neck and squeeze her soft throat, wringing it of life. She twists and struggles, changing the shadows surrounding her form. It's too quick for Slim Shady to maintain his constrictor grip, but his ministrations are enough to bring her down from her high ground.

As she plummets, a shadow forms on the ground. Slim Shady is at once gone, but he's waiting. Just before she would strike the cement blocks of the path, he reaches out, grabs her, and drags her into his shadow realm.

I feel Shady wrap his hands around her throat. I see her tear-red eyes begging and pleading. I'm going to do it. I'm seconds away from doing it. Killing her with my (Shady's) hands.

Was it all a lie? I don't understand anything anymore.

So I do something incredibly stupid: I show mercy. She rises from the shadow of an unshattered, unbattered aspen, carried by Slim Shady.

Yuuma chokes and sputters like a dying engine. She reaches out for me, but I (Slim Shady) yank her back. I don't want anything do with her. My broken heart bleeds anew.

"Issei," she groans in delirious ecstasy, tongue lolling out of her mouth, "What was that? You spared me."

She coughs and spasms.

"You really are my type."

Can I truly forgive her? Perhaps there truly is a thin line between love and hate. I, once more, prove myself to be a dumbass. I kiss her, taking what little breath she has regained away. She grinds into my embrace.

What the fuck have I done?


	3. Ohne Dich

I think the choice of combining Highschool DxD and Jojo's Bizarre Adventure must seem baffling, especially because of the tone I selected. To be honest, it is even for me. The idea of a frustrated, melancholy Issei came to me a few months ago, coinciding with some personal feeling of ennui. I wanted to examine the person I think Issei was before the start of the series. He wants sex; he isn't getting it. His only friends are other similarly lonely otaku. He's a stubborn person; if he can't get something now, he'll try with all his heart to succeed even as he falls and falls and falls. I think that Issei's problems problems are more universal than many would be comfortable to admit. I'm still not entirely sure when Jojo entered the process.

* * *

_Chapter 2: Ohne Dich_

I spared her. I stayed my hand. I ran home. She followed me. I can't fucking trust her. I can't fucking trust anybody. I stop, and Slim Shady rises in my shadow to protect me. In him I can trust.

"I can explain," she begs, "Please, I want you."

"Just go."

I just want to be alone now. They really are devil-angels. Beautiful and wicked. Burned. Burning. Falling. Broken. God. Fuck everything and everyone. Fuck the world. Right now, if I could give up half my life to kill everyone; I'd do it a heartbeat. That is the depth of my current hate. Red hot. Mixed with no small amount of lust.

Almost hysterical, she calls out, "Issei, I want you. Please, let's talk. Things can't be the same, but I don't want it to end."

"Well, why did you want to end me?" I snarl, but I wait and listen.

"At first, you were nothing to me but just another target. There was some turmoil in your soul, but I never expected what I got. Not a Sacred Gear, definitely not that. It was magnificent."

Her eyes were rich with the glint of lunacy and seemed to flash to emphasize that last word.

"Is power everything to you?" I snap.

Were it not for my friend curling his shadowy figure around Yuuma, breathing his lifeless breath down her neck, I would likely have lacked the bravado to interrogate her like this. It ought to have been frightening to any reasonable soul, but she seemed to delight in the thrill of power and dominance.

Is this what power does to a man? To Man?

"Tell me, Issei," she says, coming closer, "Do you believe in a natural order? No, do you think that hierarchies are a real thing?"

I reflect briefly on the mechanisms of power at the school. Families, in their nuclear form, have a definite hierarchy.

"Certainly."

"Why do you serve another person? Let me answer for you. Because they have power over you."

"What if it isn't real power?"

"If you obey, it might as well be," says the monster I knew as Yuuma Amano, discarding that probing thought.

"So?"

"Naturally, it is a natural state to follow those with power. You demonstrated power the likes of which I'd never seen. So brutal, so merciless, so bizarre. So personal," she said, almost like a little girl in her enthusiasm.

"Don't you have a master already?" I ask.

"But it's been so long. The hand that feeds hasn't been doing much feeding lately," she says.

"And you'd betray him just like that?"

"There is a reciprocity. I wouldn't serve if I didn't expect some personal benefit."

_Shady's_ hands start to wrap around her neck. Ecstasy. She wraps her arms around and plants a kiss on my neck with promises of more. My hand slips down to briefly squeeze her ass.

"What I want," she murmurs.

Inside, I'm a nervous wreck. Public displays of affection. So brazen. From a pathetic loser otaku. That took more balls than I thought I had. I'm not born with a triple-extra-large pair like some. I'm not so– Blessed? Yes, blessed.

"What do you want?"

"What you want: happiness."

She kisses me again.

"Yuuma will see you at school tomorrow," she says cheerily, leaving me with more questions than answers.

I go home, do my homework, and sleep on the matter. I successfully suppress any emotional outbursts under the ritual grind of my everyday life. It seems as though I now have someone to whom I can vent about these matters. Of course, this person is the same monster that tried to kill me and now seems infatuated with me. I suppose that it is a mere failure to communicate.

With a broken-mended heart, I go to school. I gleefully lose myself in my studies and make it a point to ignore Yuuma's (the name will suffice for now) attempts to get my attention. My lips turn upwards into a slight smile as I deny her.

Not only did she try to kill me yesterday, but she also has the nerve to think that we're on friendly terms.

Kids these days, I fucking swear.

Lunch could not come soon enough. However, on the way down the stairs to the cafeteria for curry day (and I love curry day), there was the sound of a throat being cleared.

"Excuse me, Hyoudou," she said.

Thankfully, it was not Yuuma. Instead, it was the tall, buxom, and much-admired Akeno Himejima. While I (as had most of the male populace of Kuoh Academy) had certainly pined over her gravure idol figure, she had not given us much attention. We figured that she was in some sort of lipstick lesbian relationship with Rias Gremory. How unfortunate.

"Yes, Himejima, what is it?"

She smiles in that yamato nadeshiko way of hers.

"Would you like to have lunch with me?"

"I'd love to, but I'm afraid I didn't bring one myself," I say, gesticulating vaguely at her bento.

"I can share."

There has to be an ulterior motive. I may be an idiot, but I'm not blind. Not to mention that I got burned and nearly killed with a very similar setup. I do take Himejima on it. The things I do for a pretty face, I swear.

It's not like I've had much female attention. My mom, but that's different. Yuuma, but that has taken a turn for lala land with a pit stop to refuel on some high octane crazy (But she's right, you know). And now this.

She takes me not to the school roof. Far too cliché. Because of its silly overuse in media, some group always occupied it. Instead we go to sit under the privacy of a gnarled oak at a distant edge of campus. Whispers following.

Don't hate the player and all that rot. (But I'm the one being gamed)

"I'm a bit surprised, Himejima. I thought we'd be eating with Gremory."

"She has things she needs to do. I don't eat with her as much as even I'd like," admits Himejima, "And please, call me Akeno. After all, this implies a certain..."

She trails off, and politely covered her mouth while she laughed softly.

A certain intimacy.

A few days ago, that would have been a completely pleasant thought. Myself and Himejima. Not only that, but Himejima making the approach. I would have been overjoyed. Now, there is a certain sense of paranoia. A trust in the darkest parts of my heart, too. In Shady.

It is quite a large lunch in two bentos. Because of how one was devoted to rice and side dishes and the other to entrees, I suppose that this would have been a normal lunch for her. How does she maintain that figure? She's tall, but I never took her for an athlete.

"What would you like, Issei?"

"You have the first pick. If you packed that all for yourself, I wouldn't want you to be hungry later. It just ain't right."

"Are you implying something?"

I smile evasively. After a moment, Himejima –excuse me, Akeno – chuckles and hands me a rice ball and some homemade tempura, prawn tails and broccoli. It is delicious, and I said as much.

"It ought to be. After all, I did make it. Besides, after yesterday, you need all the nutrition you can get."

I freeze. What did she just say? Something about yesterday. Damn!

"Pardon?"

"Oh, you know. It's not every day a mere human survives a battle with a fallen angel. Do you like my cooking?"

"Certainly, but I'd suggest that we stay away from that topic," I say with a veiled threat. I can see his face in her shadow. Ready to strike at my command. Serpentine and deadly.

"I'd rather talk about how lovely you are, Akeno," I say.

"Do you really think that?" she asks, smirking.

"Oh but I do. Guys want you, and girls want to be you."

"That's quite sweet, but very few are privy to the real Akeno Himejima."

I evasively mull the thought over in my mind, pursing my lips and tilting my from side to side. It's an act. Of course, I want to be a part. To belong. But I also want to play the game. To crack her persona. Might she be my type? Her body type, certainly. With flying fucking colors. If I can't get her interested, there's no way of knowing if she's my type? Not that I have especially high standards.

Don't forget about Yuuma, a little voice reminds me. I remind that little voice that she is an infatuated psychopath. How does the saying go again? I remember now: don't stick your dick in crazy. At this rate, if the rabbit hole with Akeno goes any deeper, I will simply have to resign myself to riding the crazy train. With girls like this, it won't be an unpleasant ride per se.

Then, to add insult to injury, I snatch up another rice ball. Penny for your thoughts. Rice ball. Eh, same difference. Akeno fans herself in the shade with a piece of looseleaf.

"I would like that very much. If only to offend the delicate mores of what associations are and are not proper at this school."

"We really must do this more often. Either yesterday changed you far more than we thought, or I overlooked the gold mine of the real Issei."

There are a few more layers before you get to the real Issei. Of course, I haven't peeled past the layers to get to the real Akeno. There's iron in her voice. A rather veiled threat

"What do you want from me, Akeno?" I ask.

She smiles coyly and eats some of her lunch.

"Let me flip that around. You want answers. I can give you answers, but there's no such thing as a free lunch. I want something of yours."

"What might that be?"

"You. Or at least your soul."

I scoff and scoop up some rice.

"How, praytell, does that work?" I ask.

A few days ago, I would have put even the lovely Akeno Himejima in the loony bin for this kind of talk. Now, not so much.

"Remember how I called that girl a fallen angel? I am a devil; and while we do want your soul, we've always been honest about wanting your soul. The Grigori bit God's hand. They're betrayers, backstabbers. You can't trust them."

"And why should I trust you?" I contend in between bites of tempura. She passes me a helping of a salad in a sweet vinegar dressing, and I thank her.

"I do enjoy hyperbole, Issei. I can also imagine what it took to earn a fallen angel's infatuation. You demonstrated absolute power. I like power."

"What are those?"

She counts them off on her fingers.

"Power, Pain, and Pleasure."

"Let's not be hasty," I say.

She recoils. Mock-hurt. Proud. Like a fisher with his biggest catch. Akeno smiles serenely. Back in control. Is it just a fun game for a devil?

"That fallen angel is a threat to you. You'd better not trust her. When you fall, I'll be there to catch you, Issei?"

"Please, no."

She licks her lips.

"Shall we have lunch again tomorrow? I'd like some forewarning if I have to make another bento. I like these sorts of conversations."

Saved by the bell. I stand up, and loosen my collar. I was sweating out of fear. Fuck my life. Before I can leave, she thrusts a piece of paper into my hands.

"Just in case she stabs you in the back."

I take it and stuff it into a folder in my disorganized backpack. Akeno waltzes off with a spring in her step, leaving me with more questions than answers.

The rest of the day passed relatively uneventfully. The fallen angel 'Yuuma' shot me nervous glances throughout the day. As soon as I had cleared the door on the way home, she was at my side. Her eyes were hard like flints.

"I talked with a devil today," I admitted.

If looks could kill, the school would have resembled Hiroshima circa 1945. A charnel pit of scorched bodies. Only shadows left. From what I had seen, it was a safe assumption that she could make that happen. She had the raw power. I had guile and surprise. I could only play it smart. Not even a cannon of glass. More like a glass bayonet charging into the guns of August.

"What did the devil say?"

"Not to trust you. She also wanted my soul. I didn't expect souls to be real, but at this point..."

I trail off and shrug.

"You've never considered the transmateriality of humanity? Please, call me by my actual name, Reynalle."

I repeat it, savoring the sound. Rei-nar-ru. With some practice, I'll have it. She giggles as I'm caught tongue twisted. It's a more fitting name that sounds just right for her.

"Transmateriality?" I ask as get on my bike while Reynalle follows.

"The idea that Man is body and soul. Form and Matter if you're at all familiar with Neoplatonists."

"I'm afraid not. Is this a bad answer?"

She huffs and walks briskly to keep the pace.

"Well, what does Buddhism say? Or Shinto?"

"I wouldn't know. As I've mentioned, though not to you, I'm a dirty atheistic pagan."

She looks at me funny, as though I'd grown a second head.

"How does that work?"

"I don't believe in a god, but I can accept the supernatural."

"Even with my testimony and existence?" she asks.

I look at her and try to superimpose the image of the dark angel I had battled in the park onto this girl in Kuoh's uniform. Really, the only thing that changed between Yuuma and Reynalle is her face. Yuuma's face was sweet, soft. Betraying a sort of unintelligence. Reynalle was sharp, calculating. Genuine. Loving. The loving face she sometimes showed me was just for me. Fierce to protect that happiness.

"Don't trust anyone over thirty," I say, purposely obtuse. Hoping to move the conversation away from the supernatural.

"We need to talk about the devils, Issei," she says.

Speak of the devil; there it is. I'd rather not speak of the devil. I stop my bike in the grass of an empty lot some blocks from my house. I get off, and I can practically feel the tension. Something that frightens her can't be good news for me. Fuck.

"What is it?"

And I listen. No pretensions. No teasing. I've stumbled into a terrifying labyrinth, and I want to survive. For my spark of life to burn. A gentle wind brushes the long tails of wild grass against my legs. Reynalle closes her eyes, trying to phrase it as best she can. I appreciate the effort for a neophyte such as myself.

"The devils Sona Sitri and Rias Gremory spoke with me today. To be frank, they want me out of their territory. You, however, can remain. Remain and be tempted."

I lean on my bike and consider her words. If today was how that temptation would go, I'd gladly– Let's cut short that idiotic line of thought, shall we? Eyes on the ball, you dumb asshole.

"But I'd have to give my consent to fall. I mean, I might want to get my dick wet, but I'm not so stupid as to sell my soul to get laid. There's desperate, and then there's desperate."

Reynalle scoffs but continues, "It's not unknown for devils interested in adding a human to their ranks to set up his death. The choice between death and devilhood is, for most, an easy one."

"Well, why is it bad to become a devil?" I ask. Genuine curiosity plays across my face.

"You destroy your human nature. It is spiritually violent and precludes the possibility of resurrection. Man is soul and body in unity. To separate the soul from the body is to create an irreparable spiritual rift and damn yourself for all eternity."

However, something comes to us on dark wings. A tall figure. Trenchcoat and hat like a film noir detective. A grim expression. A darkly pleased visage. A miasma of blood and death. An ancient evil.

"Dohnaseek," says Reynalle, "What are you doing here?"

"Finishing the job, the job that you neglected."

"Issei," says Reynalle coldly, "Leave."

The dark colossus laughs and laughs and laughs. A spear of blue light coalesces in his hand. An abomination. To use the holy for evil. He prepares to cast this searing starlight lance. My heart pounds, and I break out into a feverish sweat. A moment of indecision. Almost too late. _Slim Shady _grabs me by the ankles and pulls me into my own shadow just as he hurls the spear at me.

I hop from shadow to shadow, greedily gasping at the air as I pass from void to Earth. At the speed of dark. And then I am gone, dragged into the next shadow. I finally stroll into my house, trying as much as possible to hide the marks of the narrowly averted battle.

I realize that I need to leave.


	4. Dancing in the Dark

Freed is an absolutely underused character. Writers always seem to see the psycho and never the priest. Personally, I really like the mostly unexplained theological side to DxD. Sure, we have the commonplace evil Catholic Church. What about the eschatology and soteriology? Surely the higher-ups are aware of this if a defrocked exorcist can chill with the Grigori. Frankly, I debated putting this story in the "spiritual category."

A flaw I feel that Highschool DxD suffers from is weak villains. I really wanted Freed Sellzen to be more than a psychopath, to be a psychopath on a mission from God not unlike a more twisted version of _The Boondock Saints_. I feel that he is so underutilized as a character, especially his priestly side. I hope that my characterization is enjoyable.

* * *

Fear. That man was utterly terrifying. Just like Reynalle. How had I survived that first encounter? Bravado. Surprise. Perhaps it was a stunning depth of ignorance that made me just act to preserve myself. Here, I knew better. Here, I was paralyzed by fear. A man that had spent thousands of lifetimes slaughtering beings more powerful than me. The cat and the canary. I gasp. Free at last. Cocky. I've got to be cocky and ballsy to even think of surviving another encounter that I can't escape. At the same time, wounds to the front are just as wound-ish in nature as wounds to the rear. They make you equally dead.

I go to my room like a zombie and bury my face in my hands. My life is simply spinning out of control and collapsing into shards like a shattered mirror. I want to laugh. I want to cry. It's a mad, mad world out there.

What the hell should I tell my parents?

I can just see it now. I go right up. 'Mom, Dad,' I would tell them, 'I'm going to quit school for the foreseeable future to run away from demons and fallen angels. They're real or something. Thanks for raising me. Love you.' Wow, it's fucking nothing. Fucking ridiculous notion.

Maybe I'm just hysterical. It's been a wild few (two) days, and I've been trying to act as though nothing strange has happened. I can't stay. I hope that all my Tuesdays don't suck as much as this one. I sit back and look at the collected detritus of years. Posters, porn mags, and video games. I sigh. So many wasted years. The plain walls must be screwing with my ability to think straight because I'm feeling a bit sentimental. Even if they weren't what I wanted, those wasted years were fun. Beating the game. Shooting the shit with my buddies in our own lonely otaku way. Even sleepless nights spent fighting online waifu wars. I wistfully smile.

Really, the thing that bugs me is that my parents didn't stop me. Maybe it was the facade it put on. Maybe it was the silence of shame. Maybe I was just too stubborn for it to register, hearing but not listening. I'm a shitbag like that. That or I'm just a typical teenager dragged down by regret and empty nihilism. Why? I truly hold responsibility for my actions, but I've been molded to some extent into the man I am by my surroundings. I find the notion laughable that this malaise is somehow universal, but I don't know why. Why don't I know? Am I that blind or is the answer so obvious that I'm overlooking it?

Fuck it. I've got better things to do. If I've been molded into a fucked-up person, it's my onus to unfuck myself. I'll do it. I lay back in bed and tighten my fist in the blanket. I'll leave a note and leave them.

I pull out a piece of half-smashed, ragged looseleaf from my backpack. What should I say? If I tell the full truth, it will be a ridiculous letter of chuuni nonsense. It will be right, but in such a way that nobody would believe it. What I have to do is express what I feel in a way that they can believe. Slowly, a message takes form. A farewell. It's hard to put the enormity of this decision into words. Even then, my feelings are conflicted. Part of me wants to leave a "Fuck you" note instead of a thank you note. How have I put it? I recall now; I'm a teenage dirtbag.

I struggle. I write. I erase. I do it again and again until the paper is torn by the fury of my erasure. I calm down and pull out another piece of paper. This time, I'm collected and outwardly dispassionate. I never expected severing ties like this to be so painful. The deepest, wine-dark seas of my heart churn with storm and turmoil.

I still manage to put my farewell down in writing and tape it on the fridge. I decide that I could go for some soul food and enjoy some rice balls. Today must be one of those days, considering just how many I've had.

Ah, dark wings. Just as I was sitting down to eat. The supernatural have no sense of timing. I'm on an edge, even as Shady rises up behind me. I have an escape route mapped out. Two jumps and I'm out. From there, I'll have to wing it; but I think I can manage.

It's not that Dohanseek or whatever his name was. I'd be scared out of my wits if that were the case. That man invokes in me a feeling of primordial dread. He's on a completely different level. I shove those feelings aside for a moment when its is revealed to be Reynalle. She looks somewhat worse for wear. She is bruised and scraped, and she smears blood with every heavy step. Her wings are ragged, buffeted. Bereft of their previous proud presence. She steps forward, furls her wings which disappear behind her, and pulls up a chair.

"Do you have a beer?" she asks.

I don't like seeing her like this. I just don't.

I go back to the fridge and fish out a can of Heineken. I figure that if she is, in fact, a fallen angel, she just might be old enough to drink. I smile to myself. Boy, do I crack me up. I toss it to her, and she catches it. Taking a sip, she turns to me.

"I hope you've said your goodbyes, Issei."

"I figured it would come to something like this. It feels unreal, like the onset of a dream. I feel like maybe I'll wake up and find that none of this ever happened."

I laugh. Hollow as my words.

"I'm not going to let them take you, but I'm only one woman," she says, "So we have flee. Simple as that."

"I can fight with you," I say.

I was never one to volunteer myself for, well, much of anything. Now, it feels right. I can't place it, but something uplifting flits through my heart at this declaration.

Reynalle raises an eyebrow at me and states, "You'd just get yourself killed. That trick is bizarre; I've never seen anything like it."

"Shady is one of a kind," I say, pulling up a chair myself.

"It has a name?"

"It does, Slim Shady. Once it appeared, I knew who it was. Well, kinda. He is a part of me."

"But it's not a Sacred Gear. How?" she whispers.

She looks pensive, and I feel lost in the English mumbo-jumbo. She takes a sip of the beer and then decides to drain the can. A stiff drink would probably be nice. The vodka gave me plenty of liquid courage and a fire in my belly (and the means by which made a fool of myself). I still want some, at least this time. I mean, if a leading official could give a speech drunk, I can fight demons and fallen angels while I'm a little tipsy.

"Would you like something to eat before we hit the road?" I ask.

She gives me a tired look which turns into a bright smile. She seems peaceful and restive despite her battered visage. It can't be much compared to the feasts of heaven that she once knew, but I think that the physical is not nearly so important as the emotional aspect of the gesture. I get the rice maker a-ricing and start to cook up an okonomiyaki with a bit of diced ham and chopped green onion. The smells of sizzling meat, eggs, and onion begin to waft through the room. It's one of the few things I can cook well, and there's a certain immersion that takes me out of the real world and into the pleasant hum of the kitchen.

It is ready soon enough. I just let her eat and sit back. I go upstairs, grab a bag, and toss in some clothes and personal items. It then strikes me: I'm not lonely anymore. I might be throwing away everything I've known for no gain, but I won't be alone for the journey.

"Issei, we have a problem."

Fuck me! What now?

I rush down the stairs, feet clomping a one-two rhythm. The dishes are in the sink, and she is standing up and waiting for me. She presses her finger to her lip to shush me. I creep catlike until I am by her side. Slim Shady follows.

"It's Mittelt, another Fallen Angel. She's waiting, probably just playing with us."

"That's okay," I whisper as I pull Reynalle close, "I already plotted out an escape route."

I smile, snap my fingers. The world is painted an airless black.

In a dozen gasping jaunts through that cold void Slim Shady called home, we arrive in the local department store, oozing out of the shadow behind a pillar. He floats there, waiting guarding. The fluorescent lights flicker with flitting harshness. I sigh and slump down. Reynalle squats to my level.

"Is it exhausting?"

"Not as far as I know. I realize that I'm alone in a mad, mad world that's gotten much bigger and much scarier."

I sigh. This sucks donkey dick.

I look at her and realize that she looks catlike. In the sense of a cat that has been dragged kicking and clawing through a car wash. Shopping? I might be a stingy, middle class son-of-a-bitch, but I do have a sense of decorum. And at least theoretically, I am pecunious enough such that I can soak something more expensive than I would like. Middle class values. Or something.

I ask her what sorts of clothes she likes.

"I like light dresses, but I always ruin them when I get in a fight."

"What sort of clothes don't get ruined when you start tossing around laser spears?"

"The ones I bring with me?"

I quickly realize that she is referring to those – well, I wouldn't call them clothing – strips of tar or leather that show off the joys of bountiful oppai. Can't complain, but I understand why she might. Practicality, which is to say the comfort of having dental floss digging its way up your ass, rears its ugly head. Still, Oppai. That's right, Oppai. Not oppai. But I digress.

So, she gives me some measurements so that I can go buy her clothing. And what fine measurements they are! Again, I digress as is my wont. The reasons are plain. She looks like a domestic violence case. I look like her boyfriend. All things considered, walking around in the mall hand-in-hand like lovebirds, is not the best idea. I am not a dumbass. Nor was that Nixon fellow a crook. He had a little dog named Checkers to prove it.

Her shoes aren't ruined, those espadrilles from before. There's no need to mess with a good thing. Spats? Athletic? Yes. Durable? Unlikely. Fetishy? Undoubtedly. To buy or not to buy? Unfortunately, no. In the end, I go for designer jeans. With pockets, motherfucker. Boner or wallet? Is this even a question? I'd rather hurt my wallet than vice versa. It's not even my wallet at this point.

Dropping ten grand on a pair of jeans, no matter how well they accentuate any one ass, still doesn't seem right. And the ass is only in my mind's eye. Damnit.

I spy with my little eye a knock-off Gucci top. Floral, faux crepe de chine. Most importantly, cute as all hell. It looked good, and the price of five thousand was not terrible. I hope she likes it.

Reynalle likes it, twirling around girlishly after having cleaned herself up in the bathroom. It must be in the inhuman part of her, but she looks much better now than she did even a few minutes ago.

"Why don't you get something for yourself?" she asks.

A school uniform, I reflect, no matter how cool is still uncool. I bet I can make it cool like I'm some kind of manga character. Upon some reflection, I buy a pair of pins to stick on my collar. One of them is the peace symbol and the other spells "Born to Kill" in English. I could say some bullshit about the duality of the human condition. Mostly, I think they look cool together.

Reynalle and I strike a pose. Absolutely fucking fabulous. I assume the "come-hither" position, cocking my head at a funny angle. Reynalle crouches by my side, making a finger gun. Selfie material? Hell yeah, motherfucker. The shutter closes, capturing this moment. Forever. We giggle like little kids once I show her the picture. A warm feeling. Taking off some of the edge of fleeing for our lives.

We walk into the parking lot. It's late now. The sky is wine-dark. The lights of cars glow bright white. It feels wrong. The eerie blue of the new streetlights. Like I'm underwater or in some realm of madness. The parking lot is mostly deserted; the town gets quiet at night. Unless someone is having some sort of house party. All in good fun. It's why I'm here. As the butterfly flaps, anyway.

Pop! The parking lot is filled with glass shards and sparks as every lightbulb explodes at once.

"Run, Issei!"

Reynalle takes my hand and pulls me somewhere in the dark. Footsteps. I hear footsteps following us. Scanning the skies. Nothing, but an attack could be sudden. As I learned all too well. I look back, and Shady scans sightlessly. Left, then right. Reynalle shepherds me, running left down an alley. She hits the chain link fence running and fluidly swings herself over the top. A flickering bare bulb. Freezing blackness. But I'm past the fence.

Snap-hiss. Fires of purgation and hate. Armed by faith. Father Freed, Sellzen or some gobbledygook like that was his surname if I remember correctly. Smiling. Like a psychopathic shark. A psychopath shark with a fucking lightsaber.

"You've been a very naughty girl, Reynalle," he says.

"And you're a fake priest, defrocked for his atrocities," she retorts.

His face flashes with rage.

"I am not a fake. Do not presume to know the permanent mark of the priesthood on the soul, you who with perfect will had but one choice to make. I'll cut out that pernicious tongue of yours, you silly little bitch."

She turns to me and smiles, "You're starting to see why this fellow was defrocked, right?"

I can only nod blankly. It's almost sickening to think that I told this man my darkest secrets and failings. Everything that makes me a wicked and weak man.

"I would still be fighting the darkness with the Lord's light if that 'Adeomalleus' hadn't personally stepped in to defrock me."

"Who?" I blurt out.

"'Adeomalleus.' It means 'Hammer from God' in Latin, son. It is the nickname for the man currently sitting in St. Peter's, Pope Hilarius II. Please, let her die like the wicked bitch she is, and we'll get this sorted out."

"Is this the killing me kind of 'sorted out'? I really hope not because I'd rather not die."

His carmine eyes spark with light of his fiery sword.

"Count yourself in luck, boy. You have something far more interesting than a Sacred Gear. Do you know what a charism is?"

I nod blankly. Reynalle scowls and conjures twin lances of burning purple light.

"Of course not. What was that term you used for yourself, an atheistic pagan? Ah yes, that was it; that conversation in the confessional seems so long ago, does it not?"

"Issei!"

"Silence, whore!" he roars.

And even the fallen angel listens. She has something to say, all right; but she bites her tongue.

"It's a Greek term for a gift from God that allows one to fulfill his mission within the catholic Church. We can't quite call that a Sacred Gear. We ought to because all Sacred Gears are charisms, but that's the same as some primitive who's only seen airplanes suddenly encounter a helicopter and call it an airplane. It fits, but it doesn't."

He sure must like hearing himself talk, but I remember the confessional. He listened well to what felt like hours of my sins. He must care about me in a twisted way if he's chatting rather than disemboweling. Let him. I can run away in a thought.

"You, my boy, have the power to slay monsters. That is the ability God has bestowed upon you; it is your choice to use your power the way it was intended."

"What are you getting at?" I ask, harsh and simultaneously nervous.

"I will only ask this once. I want to leave a legacy. I like you. Join me and illuminate the dark. Now that you are acquainted with the night, the shadows will never leave your vision. Please become my apprentice. I never had these thoughts until I met you. My faith tells me that this a sign from the Lord."

"God is dead, false priest. I witnessed Him fall in the battles that rocked the heavens," says Reynalle coldly, speaking as though she is not entirely in the present., "Your only guidance is your delusions. I've been in the business of killing your kind for millenia. To me, you are nought but bacteria. Before time existed, I was."

He ignores her.

"Issei Hyoudou," he says, using my name for the first time, "there are two kinds of time, chronos and kairos. Chronos is the flow of time as we normally experience it, a sort of linear progression. Kairos is the decisive timeless moment when the line is drawn, where character is built, and where you make your choices. Now is a decisive moment: either you trust me or you trust her. The choice is yours."

His eyes glow with hope and madness. Those eyes show the courage (or madness) of a man who would burn the world for his faith.

Reynalle's differ. Everything I can see in her eyes is easily grasped. Devotion. Regret. Anger. The same protective instinct that drives a mother bear into a berserker rage to defend her cubs. I believe that it was in that single moment that I first loved Reynalle.

Now. I can't stand on the sidelines. I must choose.

"Thanks, but no," I say.

"A pity."

He charges, Swift as death. A lance of light shrieks forth. A sure deathblow, piercing his heart. He cleaves it in twain without breaking stride. Lance and sword clash with iridescent fire. They enter a deadly dance. That man is perhaps the most deadly thing I've seen in action. He expertly counters every thrust. Pushing them aside just enough to create an opening. Every blow rings with power. Never losing sight of the goal, he always aims to cut his opponent as if her weapon was inconsequential. It wasn't. Were he not an expert swordsman, he would have died in seconds. By now, this clash has lasted for a full minute of nonstop fighting. Neither giving in. Neither advancing. Neither retreating. I feel so helpless.

No longer. I have the power to make a difference.

Shady arises from the shadows of his chest. An uppercut. I'll punch Father out. Every man has a knockout button. Tap it, and it's lights out. He bends backwards at the waist to dodge a thrust while at once countering it with a whirling strike from his sword. Pain. Blood drips down my right arm from where he slashed it. It burns. Searing. Angry. Slim Shady melts into the shadows.

I see. So any blow that strikes Slim Shady hurts me. I imagine it goes both ways, that any wound on me will similarly degrade Shady. Too damn long. The amount of spiritual firepower these two are throwing around will quickly attract attention. Even I can feel this pressure. Spiritual fallout.

So, I go into the thicket of blades. Beautiful and deadly. A dervish dance. Shady moves at the speed of dark, dancing from shadow to shadow on the false priest's form as the blade moves to slash both Reynalle and me. Trying to hit him was fiendishly difficult. Like trying to pin jello to a wall.

All it took was one single, tiny fuck-up on his part. He was starting to get tired. Sweating. Breathing more heavily. One slightly slower return to his guard. Reynalle brains him with the shaft of her spear. I suppose it would have normally killed him. Melting his head like it was the Arc of the Covenant (the movie version; but at this point, I nothing would surprise me). He somehow manages to interpose his blade between the spear and his noggin. That's enough for Shady to catch him with a brutal uppercut that snapps his jaw back and leaves him reeling.

Dark wings. A cloud unmasks the moon. Three of them, including the terrifying presence of Dohnaseek. I send out Shady, but he stopps. Not as if he was yanked or hit a wall. A sudden cessation of motion like a puppet remaining motionless on its strings. So that is the limit of my range? about thirty meters. That could be inconvenient.

Blazing light. Ready to cast down thunderbolts. Feet pound the dirt. Reynalle already has two bolts in her hand, hurling them at the menacing monsters meandering in the heavens. They hurl theres.

Everything goes white. Then black. Soundless, too. I can feel concrete splinters tearing my skin. I can't take it. So, I jump into that airless void. Slim Shady. He's there. Almost asking when I would like to snap back to reality.

Now. Please.

I whirl around. Dust. Rubble. No Reynalle. Fuck. No priest or his buddies. Moderately better.

"Issei."

She wraps her arms around me. A hug. She kicks off into the air. Maybe not. My face feels like someone is trying his damnedest to rip it off. Oh fuck. I think strong thoughts of "Ignore the flying woman." Not that I'm going to protest. We land in the woods around the city. She swiftly strikes. I follow her through the gloomy forest to a small brook. She reforms the clothes I bought her out of those strips. I can't help but quirk the corners of my mouth up in a smile.

"Let me wash up," I say.

Almost. She brushes past me, but I can tell that all is not right.

"I never thought you'd be that brave."

I'm personally concerned with cleaning up the cut from that sword. Soft hands. Caressing my wounded arm.

"I didn't know you'd bleed for me."

"It was the least I could do."

I get up and let her clean herself up. We walk, and walk we do, until we come to the road to Tokyo. I check my watch. It's past one in the morning. We look like hell. Well, I do at any rate. There's just something about a pretty girl that makes a man's face light up.

A car, a large Mitsubishi, then comes with a family. They show pity and give us a ride to the next motel where a bus line runs to Tokyo. The Grand Royale.

It was past two in the morning when we arrived at the Grand Royale Motel. It looks like it dated back to the early 80s, and it seems cursed with the quick decay of so much modern Japanese architecture. We thank the family that had let us hitchhike with them. They see us off, and we are acquainted with the yellow glow of electric lights. The automatic door open impersonally and lead us into the lobby, a clean, well-lighted place in spite of the dilapidation unfolding throughout the building.

A young clerk, half-asleep and unsympathetic, gets the two of us a room. He shoots a glance at the two of us. About our identities. About my relationship. About the purpose of our stay. But curiosity is quickly replaced by apathy. I purse my lips and shrug. Reynalle clings to my shadow, hovering like a bird of ominous portent. My bird (or so I think).

We trudge across old concrete and unkempt grass, passing a pathetic square of a pool, and come to our room for the night. The key jiggles uncertainly in the lock, and a door swollen by moisture requires some elbow grease to open. A tug on a chain reveals the room in incandescent light hooded by a dingy shade. It's not much. A futon. Cheap polyester drapes. Yellowing bathroom tiles. A leaky shower. A tiny CRT television in the corner. It's enough. We set our bags on the floor.

I sit on the futon and think. Reynalle comes and sits beside me.

"What happens when I die if God is dead?" I ask.

"You end up as a shade, a ghost."

Memories of many ghost films inadvertently flash before my eyes. Too spooky for me. I say as much. She chuckles.

"Sometimes, something big and nasty eats your ghost. It's just waiting, endless waiting for souls that half-remember who they are. You can call it Sheol, not that you'd get the reference."

Verily, I do not.

"Issei," she says, "I don't need you to love me, but I need you to want me."

She crawls toward me on the futon, hips sashaying and swaying. My heart beats loudly. Her nose is mere millimeters from mine, and I can feel her breath on me. And her eyes! Dark. Cynical. Seductive. Desirous. Loving. My orbs feast upon her form.

This is what I fucking wanted. All those years. All that time. All those failures. And now I'm about to fuck a creature of darkness cast down from heaven, an assassin who tried to kill me.

I advance upon her as a general, but she lasciviously retreats and stands up. She peels off her tight jeans and hastily unbuttons her blouse. It's black, lacy, and sexy. Had she been planning this?

I fumble with my pants and shirt until her nimble hands make them effortlessly slide from my body. I want her. I take her. My hands slide along the creamy softness of her body and draw her near. I trail kisses from her bosom up her neck until I seize her lips again. My hands slip lower and unite her hips with mine.

Clumsy hands work. The lacy bra falls.

Submission. She's mine.

She worships my body as a temple. Her only pleasure the knowledge that she is pleasing me.

A gift. Love. She opens herself for me.

We make love for the first time. Entangled. Euphoric.

It's not gentle. I take her hard, fueled by lust, hate, and love. I pull her hair. I bend her over. I care not for her pleasure. But it makes her wrap around me all the tighter. It makes her mewls all the more joyous. It makes the look in her eyes all the brighter.

I lose all sense of the night. She, writhing underneath, bares her throat.

I spark and explode within Reynalle.

For how long we lay there, simply breathing, I do not know. I made love to an angel. As I remain supine with arms behind my head, Reynalle turns over and nestles herself into my side. She lays her head against my chest. Her sex-mussed hair spreads out like a dark halo.

"Issei," she whispers "Now you know why I was cast down from Heaven."

Her eyes fix themselves upon me.

"I gave myself to a human like you. I gave my entire person."

I run my fingers through her hair and brush it out of her face.

"A man cannot serve two masters. I was either totally given to God, or totally given to Man. I chose Man," Reynalle says

"Do you ever regret it?"

"I can't," she says, "such is the will of the angels."

I am acquainted with the night.


	5. The Pretender

The writings of Erich Maria Remarque are beautiful. I hope that I'll one day be able to capture beauty with my words as he did.

Jojo entered the creative process almost as an afterthought. I was talking with a friend, and it came up. I said something to the effect of, "Dude, I'm writing a Highschool DxD fic; what if I gave Issei a Stand?" At least that's how I remember it. Over the next few weeks, I came up with Stand Ideas and he told if he thought they were cool or not. He suggested some structural changes from my first version. One of the draws of Jojo, in my opinion, are its cerebral battles which I wanted to bring to DxD; I wanted to write battles won with guile and guts, not by powerlevels. I'm not entirely sure I have succeeded or will succeed, but it's an ideal against which I can measure myself.

* * *

The clouds over Tokyo are like great, purple bruises. Reynalle and I did buy umbrellas, thankfully. Here, Tokyo. Though a lattice of steel and glass. I slip an arm around Reynalle's waist and draw her to my side. A quick kiss on the cheek. People might judge. Fuck them.

I am at peace.

I always loved those panning shots of cities in movies and anime. As the dark clouds approach, lights. Each light a soul, a spark of life. Always in motion. Whether in the glare of the trains. Or in the red of tail lights. I reach out, as if to press my hand against the glass and feel the rustling heartbeat of the winds wrapping around the Skytree. When I was young, before I wanted to have a harem and before I got clubbed over the head with a great big clue bat, I wanted to be an architect. I still do whenever I see a vista like this.

Lightning flashes in the distance like an artillery barrage of the gods.

Thousands of roofs. Some flat. Others slanted. A few traditional, temples and the like. How many years? How many people? What scale! What majesty!

"You like this, don't you?"

I nod.

"Why?"

"It's beautiful, like a grand dance of nature and mankind."

"For me, it's like ashes."

"What?"

"Comparatively speaking. You are young, nor have you tasted paradise."

I step back and place my chin on my fist. Reynalle circles around me, shoes clicking distinctly with every step.

"I don't get it. One moment, you're a cute teenage girl; the next, an ancient, cryptic seeress. Seriously?"

She snorts. Dismissal.

"I flat-out told you why I think they way I do. While it's not polite to ask a girl her age, I am ancient."

Quite frankly, I'm glad she doesn't show it. I'd much rather perky, young Reynalle than some wizened crone. Not cool. She comes awfully close to me. Or attractively close. Depending on which head with which I was thinking at the time.

"I love you, Issei; but you are very dense, wolfram dense. You need to learn when to just shut up. To be honest, I don't think I've seen your eyes light up like that. It wasn't the thunderstorm, was it?"

I tell her about my dream, smiling all the while.

"Would you like to see the palaces of the afterlife? If it's just us, I bet I could sneak you in. The Brass City, Pandemonium is said to be legendary in its beauty. Heaven is, of course, more beautiful. Imagine the most fabulous cathedrals of Europe, which were supposed to be microcosms of paradise on Earth. Even the pearly gates are more beautiful."

I smile.

"Let's do that. I don't imagine they get many tourists."

"Let's set a precedent," she says.

As we step towards the elevator to take us back down to the ground for a train to Shibuya to see the Mori Art Museum, I notice a man. Tall. Wearing a duster and brown leather boots. His hair is thick, dark, and curly. Like a lion's mane. There's no way he's entirely Japanese, not with those green eyes. It's only a brief motion. A nod given in passing. There's a familiarity that utterly fails to put me at ease.

I am a thief, robbing potential revenue by using my mysterious power to not pay for the trains. Woe is me. I will admit, using such power for something so mundane is fun. The frigid void never changes. The only warmth is Reynalle who holds tightly to me, so as not to lose herself. Even in this airless Hell, she kisses me. A moment of perfect intimacy and solitude. Burning warmth. Scorching love. A candle of lust. Then we emerge from the shadows onto the train with nobody the wiser.

A long trailing coat. Fluttering in the rush of the train. You have got to be shitting me. Detour? But where? The weather sucks, so I'd rather stay inside as much as possible. The park would have been nice any other day. It's about lunchtime, so perhaps a restaurant is in order.

I check my wallet. Boy am I impecunious today! I have maybe five-thousand yen to my name. I'd had some more, but I spent some mailing back the credit card to my parents. Quite honestly, I felt bad about it. As we emerge from the shadows in an alley, shielded from the worst of the storm, we unfold our umbrellas and walk through the rain.

Personally, I like Tenya. Tempura is even better on a shitty day. As I order and pay for a pair of rice bowls, watching the grey, murky weather, that man passes by in an old yellow R32 Skyline. He parks it nearby, gets out, and the car vanishes into thin air once the key is out of the ignition. Yellow. Riding shotgun. Is that some sort of mummy? I don't want to stare, and turn back to the food and Reynalle's beautiful face.

"What is it?" asks Reynalle.

I'm not sure what to say. Really, I'd like to only think about her. Honestly. I love her, or at least I think I do. That night. Unforgettable. We've made love since. Sweeter, perhaps. No less passionate. The locations haven't exactly been the most romantic. Every so often, I have second thoughts. In the dark, with only her warmth by my side. I hate it. I want to trust her; I want to love her. I still remember that chilling moment of revelation. The battle. The sensation of almost killing her. Can I truly find happiness like this?

Reality crashes back like a tsunami. A tall shadow looms over the table.

"Seconds?" he asks.

"Who are you?" I ask, almost snarling.

"A _Stand_ User, much like yourself."

His voice is both melodic and deep; I could listen to him talk forever. Hypnotic. Like a python.

"So that's what this thing is called?" I ask, intrigued.

Reynalle glares at him, but we're in the middle of a fucking fast food restaurant. I understand why she is pissed off. Fucker got the drop on us when we can't exactly retaliate. If his ability lets him kill us without causing a scene, he may have just won. I have myself to blame; I noticed him but didn't say a damn thing. Why? How could I be so stupid?

"It is. It stands by your side."

That same mummy that was riding shotgun appears beside him. Swaddled in writhing, living warning tape. Points of light glow from empty sockets. Floating. Its finger unravels into the tape and then reforms into its original shape.

"First," he says, "Only those touched can see a Stand. The fact that your girlfriend reacted, indicates that she is not entirely human. I would have known if she were a Stand User; it's a certain _magnetism_ that draws Stand Users together. Perhaps fate. Perhaps God."

Reynalle bristles.

"Who are you?" she hisses.

He ignores her.

"Second. You and your Stand are connected. If it comes to harm, so do you and vice versa."

"I'd already figured that one out, coach," I interrupt, Slim Shady rising from my shadow with his arms folded in front of him.

"Third, Stands are mere mirages of the soul. Their matter can be shaped by a strong will."

In a flash, the mummy disappears. I look around, scanning for its presence. Inside. It's inside me. I can feel it crawling in my skin. Or at least I have a very vivid imagination.

Like performing a magic trick, he lunges forward and pulls. Out comes yellow warning tape. From my nose. It reforms into the silent mummy. He smiles, but something is off. Perhaps, he didn't like what he found.

"Akihiko Kazemi."

"Issei Hyoudou."

"Pretender."

"Slim Shady."

We shake hands in the real world. Both Pretender and Shady mime our movements, clasping hands firmly.

"My Pretender has excellent analysis capabilities. I thought you would want to know that you have a Stand Arrow lodged in your heart."

I clutch at my breast. Get it out! Get it out! It can't be any ordinary arrow, if I'm not dead yet.

"It is a sacred relic," he explains.

"A Sacred Gear?" asks Reynalle.

"No. I can sense a spiritual rift where one was, but the Arrow has expelled it from his soul."

Reynalle laughs bitterly.

"Gone. All that for naught by a freak accident."

He laughs. Deep baritone. Musical.

"Not an accident, but fate."

"That's bullshit," Reynalle says, "But I believe it."

"Wisdom is wisdom," he says, "Would you like to dine with me and my family later tonight?"

Wait a second. Family? I suppose that he looks to be in his early thirties, late twenties. I suppose that I just didn't consider the possibility.

"Yes, please," we both say, and then glance at each other.

"Then let me show you my Pretender."

We walk outside. The grey rain has let up into a dusting of fine mist. He spies a fancy car passing by. A silver BMW, slick lines evoking the very concept of speed. In motion even when immobile.

"Watch and learn," Kazemi says with no small amount of pride, "See if you can figure out the trick."

Pretender materializes and launches a rapidly unraveling arm until it touches the Bimmer. He points us to the place where I thought I saw him parking that Skyline. Pretender floats out to the spot where that same BMW now sits. I look and I see its twin drive down the street. The two are identical down to the license plates. I don't understand anything anymore. Reynalle looks pensive. He opens the passenger door for us, and then takes the driver's seat.

"Fancy cars are an earthly vice of mine," he admits, "I once tagged a Lamborghini like this."

I see him give the automatic shifter-thingy an evil eye. It's not easy to take him seriously when he does that. The ride is silent, but comfortable. The unfamiliar smell of someone else's car. The light pitter-patter of rain. The floral scent of Reynalle's shampoo. The smooth purr of the well-made German engine.

It takes almost an hour to get from Roppongi to Chiba. We arrive at an apartment complex that must have been built in eighties. The paint is already peeling, and it shows its weathering. It's well cared for, well lived-in. I just hate these buildings. Aesthetic ruins are where it's at. Not this decay from mediocrity to slouching shambles. Longing to be more than just another building, but always failing. Never surpassing. I can't let myself be like those buildings. Once we get out, the car vanishes as if it never existed.

"That's it?" I ask, not entirely knowing how he did it.

"That's it," Kazemi affirms.

Reynalle starts to laugh, clearly having a better idea of the trick than me. I hate being the slow one.

"I'd still call it a Sacred Gear," she says, "It fits the bill."

"It's more like a charism," he says.

There's that foreign word again. Is he half-Greek or something?

"I feel like I'm out of the loop. Does your Pretender replicate items?"

We take the stairs up to the third floor. One of eight. He knocks on the door before opening. Smiling fondly. A pair of girls rush toward him, maybe five and six. One has her dark hair pulled back in a braid. The other has her cut in a traditional princess cut. Otherwise, they are very similar. Twins?

"Yuu, how was your dance lesson?"

"It was great, dad. I just started on tap, and I really like it," says the girl with the braid.

"Ichigo, what about you? Read anything good lately."

She smiles kindly and nods to her father. Not the talkative type I suppose. Not everyone is.

"Who are these people?" asks Yuu.

"Yeah, dad. Who are they?"

"Good people in need. You remember the parable of the good Samaritan, don't you?"

"Yes, dad," they reply together, far more reverently than I could ever manage.

What do I believe in, anyway? A peculiar notion. Unbidden, but not something that I can altogether ignore. I think Reynalle put it best. I want happiness. But what makes me happy? Sex, obviously. I sought it because I wanted it, and it felt good. Feeling good made me feel happy. Such an infantile train of thought. It's true. What else makes me happy? Companionship, even something as pathetic as watching porn with Motohama and Matsuda or more innocently fawning over the latest anime merchandise or something. Yes, companionship makes me happy. I suppose I was happy as well before I came to the crushing realization of just how pathetic I'd become. Is ignorance happiness? I'm not sure I can answer that question.

I step into the two-plus-LDK apartment to greet the kids. Reynalle introduces herself as Yuuma. I raise an eyebrow that she definitely catches. I examine the room. Cheap flooring, well-cared for. Nice red drapes and a low couch for the entire family to sit on and watch television's latest offerings from a black and chrome LCD mounted on a deliberately distressed oak coffee table.

The kitchen is white and cheap, an eighties holdover. Seriously, fuck the eighties. Well, except for Gundam. And some other stuff too. But mostly, fuck it. Akihiko moves past his children to the kitchen where a woman has been glaring at him. She's about as old as he is. Face already forming a few wrinkles. Cute woman. Serious in contrast to Kazemi's apparent whimsy. His smile disarms her. So do words that he gently whispers into her ears. He sweeps her into his arms before spinning her around to face Reynalle and me.

"This is my lovely wife, Ai," he says.

I give her a short bow and tell her how pleased I am to meet her and how grateful I am for their hospitality. Not to denigrate the gesture or imply that I'm not sincere, but appearances are everything. That's what I learned. If you want to be cool, appear to be cool. If you want to be interesting, appear to be interesting. I wish I'd learned it sooner, but I was off inside my otaku dreamworld. Fantasy. Utter tripe. Wishful thinking. The poignant fire of regret.

"Nice to meet you two," his wife says, "Amano, Hyoudou." Not entirely trusting. Not entirely unexpected. Maybe I need a nom de guerre?

"I'd like to take them out. There's something I want to show them," says Akihiko, hanging up his jacket on a coat rack. Ai Kazemi looks like she wants to say something, given how she purses her lips. She remains silent and nods. We start to head for the door.

"Please come back by seven o'clock. You can do that, right?" she asks.

He strides back to plant a quick kiss on her cheek.

"I'll be back. Trust me."

She smiles. Bright. Loyal. Happy in spite of any prior misgivings. There's something roguish about the man. A relaxed charm. He could easily be a cult leader if he had the desire.

Once we leave, he snags a dinky kei car with his Pretender. It materializes soon enough, ready to be driven. I don't recognize where we're going. The ride takes us to the outskirts of Tokyo. My watch says that it's about four in the afternoon when he stops and gets out. Once we leave, it's gone. As if it never existed in the first place. A fake.

I think I get it now. I smile. He nods back. Confident. Why would he believe in me? It makes me feel happy. Trust.

"Do you understand?" he says in accented English.

"I understand," I reply in my own shaky grasp of the language.

"Follow me," he says, continuing the foreign conversation.

"You embarrass the English language," says Reynalle flawlessly. Damn. As to be expected from a Fallen Angel.

He takes us down via hatch underground. A cathedral of concrete. Sporadic bare floodlights illuminate circles. My shoes slosh in a few centimeters of water. Reynalle has wisely taken hers off.

"I want to see what you can do," he says, "Fight me."

Shady manifests. Reynalle transforms into an avenging angel. Where the clothes go, I do not know. I should ask. Pretender stands by Akihiko Kazemi. A lance of sickly light erupts in Reynalle's hands.

"One more thing," he says, "This does provide flood relief to the Tokyo metropolitan area. Please don't blow anything up. Now go."

Reynalle explodes into motion. Graceful, flashing muscles. Rising through the air like a sinuous sea monster. Pretender's warning tape arms unravel and corkscrew after her. The spear becomes a blur of motion as she fends off the barrage of fists. Like footage of a fighter plane caught in a crossfire of angry tracers. Seconds. Precious fucking seconds. If he wanted, I'd have been dead.

Slim Shady surges through the darkness, cutting through space as we know it. I know what I'll do: stun him, drag him into the void, and dump him back out so he can admit defeat. It's better than nothing. Shady emerges from from under the leg of his pants. Kazemi glances down and Pretender's leg unravels to pull Slim Shady bodily from his shadow. I'm in a state of shock, grasping at my neck.

"Atatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatata! Ata!"

Then his attack begins. Punches fired like cartridges from a machine gun. They aren't hard, but they're enough to throw off my concentration and, ergo, the concentration required to fight with Shady. There's one moment of respite before Shady (I) is rocked with fierce uppercut. Reynalle swoops down, spear in hand.

I can't breathe. Will she kill him? Something slithers serpentine through my guts. I really don't like this. Fire. A spear of light just like her own flare to life in his hand, wicked point facing her. She halts, shaken.

"Very good. You would have had a better shot if you understood the full extent of my Pretender's abilities," he says before turning to Reynalle, "I believe this is yours."

He tosses the spear at her. She catches it, scowling. Before she can do anything, it disappears. Gone. I guess I was wrong. I guess it can do more than temporarily duplicate an item.

"Can it copy my Stand?" I ask.

"It cannot. Perhaps yours is unique; perhaps it is common to all Stands," says Akihiko, glancing at his watch, "We should be going now."

Reynalle flies up and transforms. I simply utilize Slim Shady. It is Akihiko who has to climb the ladder. We spend some time walking until he spies a blue hybrid Civic. He views it as though it were a necessary evil. Car people are weird.

"There are more Stand Arrows scattered around the world," he says, "There are forces on the move to take them. Personally, I don't want them to fall into the wrong hands."

"Why are yours the right ones?" I ask, beating Reynalle to the punch.

"The Arrows are for Man to actualize his potential. They are not for Heaven or Hell, since they have already surpassed the body. They are for man to liberate himself from the frailties of the flesh."

"I didn't know about these Stands until he manifested it in front of me," says Reynalle.

Akihiko Kazemi meets her eyes through the rear view mirror.

"In Pakistan, I met a very powerful Stand User. He believes his cause to be just and has the power to search the world for the Arrows. You, Fallen Angel, should be concerned because, should this man succeed, God will rise anew like a phoenix."

"And the war will rage anew. The earth rent asunder. How do you know this?"

"This and that. By faith, by the tales of good men, and by my own eyes. I have seen what you have not."

"I'll join you," declares Reynalle, "The apocalypse must be canceled."

"If she trusts you like that so quickly, I'll help your cause, Mr. Kazemi."

"We're comrades now," he says, "Call me Akihiko, just not in front of my wife. She'll think it's disrespectful."

We return in good cheer in time for good food. Having a cause to call my own makes me feel lighter. More energetic. More prideful. I like it. With these thoughts in my mind and with the entire family having gone to bed, I quickly kiss Reynalle and snuggle up next to her. I can feel sleep settling into my tired eyes.

Life is good.

But I feel deep in my bones that battles will follow.


	6. Blood Brothers

Sorry about the wait. I was on vacation sans internet connection. Thank you for bearing with the delay.

One of the things about Jojo that I love is how many music references it slips in. I've been trying to keep that with a few turns of phrase and my chapter names. This chapter was a bit of a challenge to name in a meaningful way. Others felt quite natural, but this not so much. On that note, _Brave New World_ is one of my personal favorite albums.

* * *

The last week has passed pleasantly. We've been helping around their home. Our presence is somewhat strained in the manner of guests having overstayed their welcome; but things aren't bad. Really, any strain is between Akihiko and his wife. She's nice, polite, and probably has as plan to kill everyone in the room at any given time. I jest. She also makes delicious homemade takoyaki. Godlike. The twins are cute; they really love them. I can see it in every little gesture. Love. Family. Peace. It brings a calm between Reynalle and me. It's infectious. Love, that is. A kind word. A little gift. A small gesture.

Today is Thursday. Akihiko, Reynalle, and I sit around a small, circular table at a little coffee shop several blocks from his apartment. Not franchised. A little dingy. A little greasy. The hole in the wall that makes a neighborhood a neighborhood. The high sun in an azure, cloudless sky warms the table. It is comfy next to the window. Or it would if the other half of my body weren't cloaked by the cool shadows of the small shop, smelling of roast and wood. That makes it a slight nuisance that I notice only when there is a pause in our conversation. I have an espresso. Akihiko settles for black coffee and Reynalle for a cappuccino. Not as good as Crazy Hassasn's, but the venues for Turkish or Greek coffee are limited. Fewer still were as affordable. I just want very strong coffee in very small cups.

"If I may ask, what was so special about that man's Stand?" I ask.

"It was unapproachable. I started with a purloined revolver, but I saw the bullets slow down before my eyes until they disappeared entirely. I dared not touch him with Pretender," Akihiko explained, his face distant. Scrunched in concentration. As I had learned, details were everything in the battles of Stand Users. And a good life skill. We clashed again in the flood-diversion tunnels, trouncing him. Pretender was truly fearsome, but its greatest asset was surprise. Akihiko Kazemi had explained that in his few battles, he did not leave an opportunity for his opponent to have a rematch.

"What about that man?"

"After that, I used a secret technique passed down through generations of Kazemis. I ran away. As far as I know, that man never discovered the full extent of my Stand's abilities."

"What did it look like?" asks Reynalle, "I want to be able to recognize danger when I see it."

He leans back into his chair.

"It was Olympian. A perfectly sculpted form, muscular, strong. It had skin of bronze; it really was like a living statue. What I remember most is its face, or lack thereof. Its visage was obscured by mists, with only glowing points of light for eyes. Really, it reminded me of Michelangelo's David."

How strange. How distinctive.

He takes a sip and did a half-shrug so as not to spill his coffee. It's nice to have some fellow coffee aficionados. Not that tea is bad, mind you.

"I will say this. For all its might, I never saw it more than two meters from its user."

"So you think that this powerful Stand User will personally intervene."

There is a pause. A small intake of breath. Mental gears turning, thinking of how best to phrase the following words.

"Yes."

"So, what now?" I ask.

"I believe that the Arrows are somehow linked to each other, just like the magnetism that makes Stand Users likely to encounter other Stand Users."

"Wait and see?"

"No, I think we need to go on a journey to find them, and the Arrow in your chest will be a compass."

"I'm game. Where to first, then?" I ask.

"I think we should go to Russia, and then take the railroad to Italy. If my research is correct, there may be an arrow somewhere in one of Roman ruins."

"How many are there in total?"

"Three. I am sure of it. If you must ask why there are three, it is a theologically significant number."

"My spears might do some damage to that Stand User. They are more than just physical," remarks Reynalle.

"Yes, they might. Hmm, what was that about spears?" says a rude voice.

Akihiko and I turn. We have not yet deployed our Stands. They move at the speed of thought; there is no need to be so obvious. Surprise is the ally of the Stand User. In an ideal world, battles are stacked to favor a Stand. That's what I've gathered from Akihiko's "war stories." A pitched battle is more like a puzzle, each side trying to comprehend the other. The first one to figure it out wins. We don't have the raw blasting power of an angel or a demon. Surprise and imagination.

A flash of short blonde hair. Lolita. The girl is a fucking goth loli wrapped up in an adorable black bow over her frilly dress. How fucking cool is that? Very. It's elegant. I legitimately like it, and I'm glad I'm in Japan because the only other people that seem to come close to pulling it off are the Russians cosplayers. I bet gulags have something to do with it.

"Mittelt."

"Reynalle, you fucked up. You really fucked up."

"I had my reasons."

"Sure thing, betrayer."

Reynalle snorts, "We're both Grigori here. Why do you think we are what we are?"

"That's different and you know it – Oh, thank you! A cafe mocha? Just what I ordered, thanks! – Now, where were we?" she says, coffee in hand.

"Sitting down and talking like civilized people?" I offer.

"You, boytoy, shut it. I've got a message to give."

"Well, sit down then and give it," Kazemi says.

She does, and the atmosphere around the table is less than friendly. Shots have been fired.

"Your family will be in danger as long as you harbor these two. Give them up, and it will all be over."

"Pardon?" he says, curt and abrupt. Like a cliff over a gaping abyss. Unlike the voice I've heard over the past week. A pin could drop in that second of silence.

"My companions want you to stay out of this. To back it up, your family is being held captive by that fake priest. Personally, I wouldn't leave him alone with women and children."

"Papists can be like that," he remarks, "but I know that there is more to this than any of my theological prejudices. Did you just threaten my family?"

"They are in danger and will continue to be in danger if you don't wash your hands of these two."

He finishes his coffee and gets up. The fallen angel Mittelt smirks. Those pretty blue eyes are ice cold. Reynalle is grim. I keep calm a facade, flicking my eyes from person to person. I can feel that slithering snake of doubt worming its wiggling way through my guts.

"Let's step outside," Akihiko suggests. It isn't a suggestion.

We step into the afternoon sun. Like gunfighters in a Western film. Mittelt on one side. Reynalle and I on the other. Akihiko Kazemi in the middle, facing the street. Pedestrians flow around us like mighty boulders in a coursing river.

"Take me to my family."

"Walk away first," returned Mittelt.

"Are you deaf?" he asked, low and dangerous, "I told you to take me to my family. That was not a conditional statement; that was an ultimatum."

The wind swept his duster around.

"You wouldn't."

Akihiko shrugged and turned his back to the lolita fallen angel. A flash of thought. Akihiko was silent as Pretender suddenly assaulted her in a barrage of tape. Sharp as steel. Quicksilver speed.

"Issei."

And I instantly understand his plan. Slim Shady quickly drags the dazed Grigori into her own shadow. Into my world. We casually turn the corner, and head into an ally. Kazemi seems to know where he is going. There's the remains of a multi-level parking lot entombed by a glut of buildings. I guess zoning didn't work out. Rust stained concrete. The drip of water. Rebar jutting out like the skeleton of a half-rotted corpse. Clawing at the sky.

"You know all the good places for supernatural brawls," commented Reynalle.

"I make a point of it," admits Akihiko sheepishly, like it was some sort of deep, dark secret. On second thought, it kind-of is. What sort of weirdo scouts out abandoned locations that might be good for a fight? I must be a weirdo if that sort of reasoning seems practical to me.

"Dump her."

The blonde Grigori emerges from the shadows, curled into a foetal position. She gasps raggedly for air.

"Toughen up, you big baby," says Akihiko, "We're going to have a talk."

She tries to protest, but a purloined spear of light materializes in his hand. This man can be utterly ruthless when sufficiently pressed. We leave her and rush to the place the fallen angel's, Mittelt's, directions indicated.

We plunge into the darkness of the defaced Chuch serving as our foes' safehouse. Reynalle's spear smashes through the brick with howling fury. We charge into the breach without breaking stride. Lights out. The transition from sunlight to darkness was far too abrupt. Sickly spears erupt in blazing fire. Features flicker and dance. Two crying girls. A distraught woman. Strong willed and unbroken, just like her husband. I can see a blackened eye.

"I told you," croaks Ai Kazemi, "My husband would come." Laughing. More like a pitiful gurgle.

A blade erupts with holy fire. Father Freed. He smirks, glances at the two Grigori.

"The boy is mine."

And then he is upon me before I can think. Before I can use Slim Shady. Sword and pistol in tandem. Such coordination should not be possible. Shady dances across the man's shadows. He's too agile to drag him into his own shadow. If I stray too close, that lightsaber will slash me to ribbons. Too far, that pistol of his will turn me to Swiss cheese.

"Good, good. You're improving, Issei," remarks Freed.

He's not even tired. Friendly even. What the fuck is wrong with this man? I jump back from a swing that should have disemboweled me. The blazing sword carves a molten gouge into the brick and plaster facade. The sinister levels the pistol. I reach out with Shady to bat his hand away from my body.

"I could have taught you so much."

"Why would I want to learn from a monster like you?"

"We're all monsters, Issei. We're all damned; only divine intervention can save you and that's been dead for almost as long."

"Shut up!"

I answer with a barrage of fists from Shady. A surging battlecry. I can feel my blood boiling. I hit. I do it. Father Freed is pummeled under the relentless rain of fists. Unable to parry. I just might win this.

He jumps back and laughs. Reynalle and Akihiko trade blows with the other Grigori. It is unclear who has the advantage here. Oh fuck, that was a lightsaber! Oh shit, that was my leg! Burning pain. Like fire. Or stumbling into a hornet's nest like I did when I was seven.

I can take it. I'm not a bitch. Not anymore. Not now. Never again.

I briefly jaunt into the void, phase back to reality above him. The pistol screeches, sending coherent light at me. I'm not a fool. All I needed was a little light. A little shadow.

Pop goes the weasel. Converting all the speed of my fall into an uppercut that slams into the defrocked priest's chin. All he does is laugh.

"How bold of you! Have you unfucked yourself yet?"

That's not who I am anymore.

A moment. That's all he needs to cut me.

Is it?

Whatever answers I can give myself are lost as I riposte with a barrage of Shady's punches, so fast that the blows appear to impact as a solid wall of fists. Stands, I must admit, are cool like that. Derisive, mocking laughter. Mocking me. Mocking what I stand for. Mocking what I was. What I am?

Fuck it. Kill the fucker.

"I don't need your advice."

This time, I'm fast enough to force him to block my blows with his arms. Just outside my vision, his leg pushes forward and slams into my thigh. My vision goes red. Searing. Burning. Pain. A pain that aches through my bones. That's no mere brawling, nor any martial art I know. There's method to his madness, thank you very much Polonius. If I can't see it coming, I(Shady) can't react.

The decision is simple. I retreat. Hah. If that. I blunder blindly back, flailing and screaming. Like a toddler separated from his mother. Crying. Afraid. Fear of the Dark.

"Let me tell you something," says Father Freed, "I've been around the confessional a few times. I've had repeat customers. The pious. The scared. Those seeking peace outside of the therapist's couch. The repeat customers keep on committing the same sins over and over again. We aren't saints."

That makes a twisted amount of sense. Saints are notable for overcoming sin. Can a normal man? Are we powerless? Am I powerless against my vices?

"Just as I am a murderer, let there be no doubt, you will always be filled with lust and sloth. Did you think that getting you dick wet and getting magic powers would fundamentally change your character."

The sword swings out. Shady deflects it from the shadows of his wrist. But it scorches my shirt all the same. Shady swings out from the small of his back, fist aimed at the back of his neck. I want him to shut up. Stop saying these things.

Maybe, he's lying. Fuck. Why should I even believe him? But why else is a saint notable than for overcoming sin? He's just fucking with me. More like fucking me with the truth. Fuck. I leap back from another swing.

"Issei, get your head in the game!" Reynalle yells.

You know what? Fuck him. Fuck this man. Fuck everything about him. I don't give a fuck if there's any shred of similarity between the two of us. Fuck that. Is he right? Maybe. Who gives a fuck? Saints are men too.

"Has something changed, child?" he asks.

My exhalation is like a bull about to charge in arena. It's just a moment to clear my head. Put a bandage on my bleeding heart. That can wait. I know I'm fucked up. I know I am and have been a terrible person. A pathetic fucking pussy. A shitstain who was more comfortable jacking off to cartoon girls than actually talking to a pretty girl.

That's not everything about me. My name is Issei Hyoudou. I like architecture. I have some fashion awareness. I know the best local coffee joints. I'm not half bad at math. I tested into an excellent high school. I've even gone and had some fun getting myself fucked up. I have friends, even if I fucked them. I'm know that I did, and I'm sorry about it.

You, Father Freed, don't know a damn thing about me. All you know about are the things that make me guilty and disgusted with myself. So.

"Fuck you," I say.

It's quiet, like the calm before the storm. It's calming. Cool. Razor sharp focus.

I do the idiotic. I get close. A bolt of searing light tears through my shoulder. Clamp down on it. Shut it off. I don't care. It doesn't matter. Even as my left arm flops uselessly at my side. That's okay, I've got more hands.

Shady Steps in my shadow. My right hand takes the gun out of line. Shady is fast and subtle enough to grab and twist his wrist before he react this time. That's okay. I don't need more than one "this time." Half remembered judo lessons fill my mind. His knee snaps him as he prepares to take me into a clinch. I have no doubt that he, more experienced and mostly unharmed could clobber me. I don't give him the chance. I have Shady. The Stand punches him in the face. That's all I need to grab his wrist and throw him over my hip.

Whump-crack. His head slams and bounces on the stone floor. His moans are pitiful. A glimmer. His pistol. Oh shit.

Fuck.

Parts of his body don't seem to be under his control, and he twists. Spasming. Groaning. Flopping like a fish out of water. How can he concentrate enough to pick up the pistol and keep it steady? This will be my last thought before I die.

And then he points it under his chin and pulls the trigger. The mangled jaw rasps a single word.

"Amen."

He dies laughing. Why? Why would he do that? Why would anyone do that? What does it mean?

"Issei," says Akihiko, cold and yet somehow reassuring, "We need to go."

And so we do. Of the Fallen Angels, nothing remains.

We make the papers while I recover in the hospital. Reynalle changes her face, and Akihiko tells the story. It's a small column about an extraordinary citizen's arrest. That's putting it lightly. I've always wanted to be a hero. How ironic it is that the one time I'm getting good publicity, I really don't want it. That's life. Or something. I can't say I'm disappointed, nor can I be happy.

How many times did I think of what the priest said to me?

Thousands. Hundreds. More than I can count at any rate. I thought about it. Deeply. Heavily. As though my heart were being weighed against a feather. Can I really change? Who am I really? Really. That's a word that came up often in my mind. Can I make these desires correspond with reality? Make them become truth. That's what I tell myself

The white walls both enclose and liberate me. From myself. From the world. This whole Stand business is an adventure, I believe. It's certainly one way of removing an emotionally corrosive malaise. It was a sickness of the heart. Of the soul. There's a certain song by a certain band about a certain man living in a particular time. Schizoid. Torn apart. Without direction. Chaotic.

What the hell did I think I was going to be? A king with a harem? I'd laugh so hard at the notion, except that I probably bought into that exact notion. It's a fun fantasy. That much I can say. Rias Gremory would have had a place there. So would Akeno Himejima. Now? Well, both are still sexy as hell; can't avoid the obvious. However, having gotten laid myself and not having experienced any sudden changes in character, such a goal feels less pressing. Like a side dish to the entree of life. Insert eating pun here. Hook, line, and sinker. Har! Har! Har!

In all seriousness, I think I'm going to take the fake priest's words as a warning. The person that I can always be. Like a drug addict. I'm no saint, but I'm not going to damn myself. Not again.

It's about two in the afternoon when Reynalle comes to visit me. She brings me flowers. Yellow, sweet-smelling lilies. She sits down in a chair next to the bed. Then, she smiles. It brightens the room like a sun. Radiant, beautiful. If I tell her anything, she'll stop; and I don't want that. It would kill the moment.

"So?" I ask, trailing off.

"So, you're a hero. At least for the weekend."

"Don't really feel like it," I say, pointing at my arm. I still don't know how Akihiko bluffed his way through that injury. I was a bit loopy from pain and blood loss at that point.

"You did good, Issei."

"Thanks."

"You've been thinking, haven't you?"

I admit as much.

"About what Freed said?"

"I am. It wouldn't have been hard to dismiss him if we met under other circumstances, but that's not it. He wasn't just screwing with me. Or at least that's what I think."

Reynalle ponders her next words.

"He's not wrong. He was trying to mess with you; but I think, having unfortunately known the man, his opinions were genuine. I don't think he's right, either. If angels can fall, humans certainly aren't locked into their destinies."

"I suppose so."

I don't think she truly understands. I'm not willing to press the issue. I'm happy just to be with her.

"Moving to more pleasant things, how are Akihiko and his family?" I ask.

"They're well. A bit stressed, but things are going well."

I snort. I can imagine the sort of strain that would put on a marriage.

"What's the next great adventure?"

"Russia, and then Italy."

"Want to see the Vatican?"

She places a finger on her lip, pondering the silly notion of a Grigori waltzing into what was the indisputable seat of Catholicism and (much, much more disputably) Christianity. I just want to see the Sistine Chapel and the Basilica. Seeing them in person would be cool as shit.

"Sounds like fun."

"Kazemi's plan, it is. I'm a bit worried about that Stand user he mentioned."

"We could take him. Or at least run away. It's an ancient Grigori technique, handed down through the ages, you know."

I chuckle.

"Is it now? How come those two yesterday couldn't flee?"

"My beautiful self knew all their tricks, and Kazemi could copy them. Turnabout is fair play."

"Whatever you say."

We laugh, and I can't believe I'm laughing about dead people. Dead people that I killed. Well, not really. But, there's some good way of expressing my aversion. The laughter intensifies. I'm going to Hell for this. That's okay. I like the way it hurts.

So would Himejima.

I could almost swear that I saw Rias's bloody, crimson hair in the crowd at Narita as we made out way to the Aeroflot terminal. Wherever she went, Akeno followed. We were going to fly our way to Vladivostok and take the Trans-Siberian to Moscow. From Moscow, we'd fly to Rome and go tomb raiding. It was going to be a long ride. Thankfully, I had the collected works of Tolstoy to get into an appropriately Slavic mindset.

The real adventure was beginning.


	7. Defying Gravity: An Interlude

I actually enjoy both hip hop and musicals, even though the first point should be obvious given the protagonist's Stand. I do actually think that this interlude deserved its own chapter.

* * *

The room was austere. Bare concrete floor. Bare bulbs. Mirrored walls. Smelling of sweat, iron, and incense. In one corner stood a small weight rack. In another, a well-used squat rack. It was there that a man stood with two plates loaded on either end of the bar. The metal bent under the weight unlike the man who bore it.

Crushed by gravity and iron, he would not bow as he squatted down all the way to the floor. Then it was time to surge forward. To rise as the Lord did from His death. Muscles corded like steel cables. Legs as thick and solid as trees. He drove his hips forward as rose, defying gravity. That was the first repetition in the moonlight. Sweat beaded and his muscles burned

He spoke, turning his physical exertions into a prayer.

"Dear Lord, teach me to be generous, teach me to serve You as You deserve."

He paused for water as he finished his set of squats.

"To give and not to count the cost, to fight and not to heed the wounds."

He stretched and worked the some residual stiffness out of his joints, hearing a few encouraging pops.

"To toil and not seek for rest, to labor and not to ask for reward."

He paused and moved to start begin his set of deadlifts. Today was leg day. Calloused hands grabbed the lightly scored iron and loaded each side of the bar up with weights. The question remained for just how far he would go. This was his way of partaking in a microcosm of the cross. The plates added up to a bit over two-hundred kilos.

"Save that of knowing that I am doing Your will."

He could feel the molten iron coursing through his tired muscles. He'd never deadlifted this much in years, especially not after squats. Sweat poured off him like the Red Sea having been parted. But he did it, and he knew he would need that strength

"In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen."

He moved onto a different prayer than St. Ignatius's Prayer for Generosity as he settled into a relaxed stance near the punching bag. It wasn't the same as a live fight, but he'd sworn that off years ago. After one disturbed student. Long, sweeping kicks. Fast, brutal punches. Flowing from one blow to the next like an endless, indomitable, unstoppable river. Ducking under imaginary blows as he spun into back-kicks. Such was the essence of a savateur.

There was a knock.

"Come in," he said in a voice that rumbled like thunder rolling through the mountains.

A tall man dressed in unadorned clerical garb walked respectfully into the small gym. He ran a hand through his salt and pepper hair while the other grabbed a towel for his brow and shaved head, both dripping with perspiration.

"Freed Sellzen is dead."

His blue eyes pierced the other man just as surely as bullet.

"Something about this must be notable for you yourself to arrive in person and at this time, Cardinal."

The Cardinal paused, as if to speak but held his tongue.

"You and anyone else are always welcome. You are always free to speak. I understand decorum, but I also understand circumstance."

"I could not resist the siren call of sin. When I saw an opportunity, I used my Fatty Boom Boom to implant a thought of 'kill' into his brain which he then promptly ventilated."

"How long was one of Fatty Boom Boom's balloons hovering around that madman?" asked the man, now seated cross-legged on the floor with a bottle of water in his hand.

"Two years. The rush of new information was overwhelming once it popped," said the Cardinal, pointing at the rust stains of drying blood from his nose and tear ducts.

"He was such a promising child, but his rise was meteoric. Too young and too high. Sent on constant missions. It was only a matter of time until he broke."

"You wish that you could have done more than teach him how to fight?"

"I do, Cardinal; but I was a bishop then and could only watch his equally meteoric fall. That I could not save such a promising young man – no, that I stood by when I could have saved him – is one of my greatest regrets."

"He was collaborating with the Grigori."

"I know. When I find them, I will destroy them as any righteous man would."

"Can you do that?"

He smiled without humor. Entirely confident. Or perhaps entirely too confident.

"I cannot condone that you brought a man to suicide. Shall I confess the confessor?"

"If you can bring yourself to look upon me."

He looked wistfully at the moonlit night.

"There's a thin line between love and hate. One might say that I hate my enemies, but I also love them. I hate evil, but I love evil men. Even the worst sinner has an intrinsic dignity that deserves love. You can't separate their identity from their actions. I both love and hate them, though I ought not hate."

Thus began the midnight sacrament in a spartan home gym. The penance was that the Cardinal was to work as a suicide prevention counselor in addition to all his other duties while wearing a sackcloth undershirt.

"What else have you learned from your Fatty Boom Boom?" the man asked.

The Cardinal did not speak. Merely, he was surrounded by hundreds of balloons of innumerable shapes and hues whose ribbons were all linked to an ornate steel ring on his left pinky finger. The Cardinal twisted the ring and cut the myriad balloons loose. Then, he stepped on one as though he were standing on the flattest, most solid ground in the world. He danced among the balloons, returned to the ground, and told his tale.

The man stroked his snow white mustache as he considered these developments. Of Fallen Angels fighting their kind. Of other Stand Users. All linked by fate.

He then spoke two words. What followed took the Cardinal's breath away.


	8. Crazy Train

Here is where we really go off the rails. On the one hand, I wanted to name the chapter after one of the Stands. On the other, it takes place on a train.

One of my goals is to keep the cerebral aspect of the battles in JJBA. I want to have Stand Users fight smart because they get pulped if they don't. I think it's a nice change of pace from the usual power levels and escalating threats. I also hope that Issei's character development has seemed natural. If not that, I hope it has been an enjoyable ride.

In addition, I'd like to extend a special thanks to Esther Huffleclaw for coming up with a playlist for the story as well as its cover image. The playlist can be found at the following url: playlist/How+Far+To+Paradise/100062113

* * *

Ah, Vladivostok. Of course, one cannot escape a history of war. Here lies the Russian Pacific Fleet with many of its ships, bristling with antennae and missile tubes. Many bristling with the red scabs of rust. They rock gently in the wine-dark sea. Even now, they project an aura of power. Remembering past glory like a one armed sailor in some dingy tavern. Here and there are monuments in bronze and concrete to the fighting spirit of the Soviet people during the Second World War.

What history! Still, I'm fare more enthusiastic about the prospect of seeing Rome. I don't especially enjoy seeing the ugly bunkers of Soviet-era tenements. Here and there, the remnants of a once-proud empire stand. A mix of East and West. Down to the people, even. Here and there, I spy Koreans and Chinese alongside the Slavs one would naturally see in a Russian city. I will also admit that it is nice to see real Koreans, which is to say sans plastic surgery. It's also strange to hear them speaking Russian like natives. Which, after several generations, they quite naturally would be.

The Vladivostok Station is the same. A mix of East and West in its sensibilities, just like the empire that built it. The essential characteristic of Russian architecture. It's unlike anything you'd find in China or Japan. At the same time, it isn't European either. Dozens of white, Romanesque arches abound. Greenish tiles like scales. Hundreds of little adornments that give it an almost Moorish flair to my eyes. Bright red Cyrillic. Владивосток.

I'm not quite sure what I expected to see on the train. We had decided to travel kupeny (second class, four to a compartment) for a modicum of privacy, except for whatever stranger would be sharing the compartment with us. Certainly more private than the open platzkartny (third class, six bunks in same space as one kupe compartment). We had stocked up on instant potatoes and noodles like the travel guide had said. I was mentally bracing myself for a week without bathing. This wasn't a sightseeing tour, so we were doing one straight shot from Vladivostok to Moscow in the Rossiya line. I wasn't expecting to see those green curtains. Russian kitsch. The photos of the various stops the train would take were a pleasant diversion.

Once Akihiko, Reynalle, and I had made ourselves comfortable, the fourth occupant of our compartment arrives. Tall, dark-haired, and undeniably handsome. He wears a burgundy shirt, silk, and fitted with equally tailored brown corduroys. Those crocodile loafers loo far too nice for the far-flung reaches of Russia.

"Nice watch," I say in hesitant English, looking at the fancy, copper-plated timepiece, "Is it a Rolex?"

"It's a Vostok. Vostok Europe, not the comparatively shit one that makes the Amphibia and Komandirsky."

"Sorry," I say haltingly, "You lost me. My English is slow. Nor do I know watches."

He smiles. I can imagine how women would swoon at that bright smile.

"Are you perhaps Japanese?"

"I am," I say, "How did you know?"

"It is your accent. I've been around enough to recognize it."

"Do you understand Japanese?" I ask somewhat sheepishly.

"A little," he says in Japanese, "I'm Matej Radic. Nice to meet you."

"Issei Hyoudou, pleased to make your acquaintance. Where are you from?"

He laughs and says that he's from Croatia. He explains that he is returning home after being away for over a year. There's something off about him. It's just a feeling. Tiny needles pricking my skin. Annoying and electric. The faintest hint of ozone in the air (alongside the odor of his undoubtedly expensive cologne). That sensation– Just like Akeno.

Might he be a Stand User like myself? Or a devil?

Only one way to find out. I manifest Slim Shady's hand on top of my own and wave it around. For what it's worth, I think it looked funny and about as threatening as a stuffed bear.

"A Stand!" exclaims the Croat.

His eyes become hard. To think that this coincidence would occur. Not a coincidence. No way in Hell. Stand Users are fated to meet Stand Users. And Matej wasn't aware of it.

The scent of ozone. Overpowering, cloying. Matej stands to his towering height. Behind him, his Stand manifests. Bright purple lightning. Crackling and humming. In the form of a skull and crossbones. Open mouth, groaning. Is it agony? Or might it be ecstasy?

"I'll show you mine," I say, "Calm down, buddy."

The ever-dapper Slim Shady manifests out of the Croat's shadow and then hope from his to mine. Standing beside me. Standing proud.

I don't think I took another breath until about a minute later. The electric Jolly Roger disappears; his shoulders relax. Shady slides down into my shadow until he too is gone from the compartment.

"What's yours called?" I ask.

"Electric Head. And you?"

"How fitting. Mine is Slim Shady."

"What are the odds! Another person with that mysterious power. When it first awakened, I thought I had been taken by the Devil himself."

"How did it happen? I was on my bike after a hard night of partying, and I was struck by an arrow. A few days later, Slim Shady showed up."

"An arrow?" he says, rubbing his jaw, "I too was pierced through the heart by an arrow."

He rummages through his duffel bag for a package of cigars and a bottle of vodka. A few more seconds of searching produce a pair of shot glasses and a pack of matches.

"Sorry about earlier," Matej says, "I overreacted. Whenever my dad wanted to make up with people, he'd have cigars and liquor with them in his study."

He smiles wistfully.

Reynalle and Akihiko return to find Matej and I red-faced, putting out more smoke than a steamer, and laughing like we've been friends for far longer than the last thirty minutes. Life is good.

I must admit that I grew to like Matej over the next three days. As I learned, he was twenty-one years old. He felt like someone much older. Four years shouldn't seem like such a gulf. Still, I'm glad to have met him. He's the cool older brother I always wanted. The brother that was everything I wanted to be. Rich. Suave. Good with the ladies. Rebellious enough to introduce his little brother to vices of which mommy and daddy surely wouldn't approve. Cool enough to take his little brother with him and teach him how to be one of the guys.

Matej had enough stories of shit like that. Dating turbofolk divas with, as he had graphically described, "more plastic in their tits than the entirety of Silicon Valley." Driving tricked out Bimmers faster than was safe while liquored up more than was prudent. I'm not so sure that I'm brash enough to party hard enough to think that is a good idea. The Croat admitted that they weren't smart ideas, but they were pretty fun at the time. Thank God for Stands. We Stand Users can talk and understand each other like we were fluent in each other's native language. "A gift of tongues", Reynalle had called it.

I thank whatever power behind the Stands fated us to meet. Akihiko. Matej. What a bizarre twist of fate. Not altogether unwelcome. I'm glad I met them. I'm glad I met Reynalle (all things considered). The dominos would not have fallen otherwise. I'd still be back at home.

Home. A journey can't last forever. What will I do? Probably, I'll have to repeat a year of school. Or at least go to summer school. Not to mention the devils at my high school. They'll have something to say about my strange powers. My stranger company as well. I'm not biting that bullet yet.

I wonder what I'll say. Perhaps I'll quote those lines from the end of Ran. I hope things end better than they did in that movie.

There is a knock at the door. Akihiko and I look up from our game of chess. Reynalle puts away her copy of Anna Karenina. Matej's eyes shoot open from a nap. Something ain't right. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

"It's devils," whispers Reynalle.

"They don't know who Matej is. I don't expect you to die for us anything, but I'd appreciate if you were to chat. I'll hide, but we can't breath in Shady's shadow realm. That's about a minute."

Matej nods, and I grab hold of Reynalle and Akihiko. Then, we sink down into our shadows.

Bleak. Endless night. Cold. Like a snowstorm. No, worse. A bone-chilling cold just as when a man has gotten soaked by frigid rain and the winter wind, sharp as knives, slices through cloth – though meat and fat to stab at a man's heart. To quench his fire. His spark of life. As the seconds dragged on, I felt each tick of my watch. A distinct mechanical pulse. Stretching seconds into hours. Perhaps it was panic. Perhaps lack of air. This jaunt was worst of all.

Except for one thing. I had my friends. My lover, Reynalle, and Akihiko Kazemi, a blood brother. Nakama. Comrades as close as family.

The seconds burn through my lungs until I cannot take it anymore and return to reality. I collapse gasping in a pile of limbs. We all fell from the top bunk into the bottom.

"Hello, Issei. How do you do, you naughty boy?"

Oh fuck. Fuck me sideways. That's Akeno.

I wave back at her. Oh shit. This has gone utterly, absolutely tits up. Fuck everything.

"I don't think we've actually talked."

And that is Rias Gremory. Tall, foreign, buxom, and classy. Was she in any of my classes? Precalc, maybe. Wait a second. Yup, she was. I like math, but I'd recognize those tits anywhere. Even when I'm trying to kick ass at trig. Not that it's terribly difficult. But with monsters like her and Sona Sitri in my class, I struggle to break beyond being ranked third in the class. It's good competition and not something I should be thinking about when faced with imminent doom.

"I think we have, but in no more than two words in any one exchange," I say.

"You should come with me," says the crimson princess (the only way to describe her bearing), "Forces greater than yourself are afoot."

Her smile is sad.

"We could have been friends," she says.

"Stop right here," says Matej, "I don't know who you are or what you want with Issei, but I've seen this set up before. Let's play fair, shall we."

"Who might you be?" asks Rias with a cute tilt of her head.

He shrugs. My skin starts to prickle as they walk out the door. Their eyes tell a different story. Eyes filled with shock and anger. The grinning skull laughs wordlessly behind the Croat.

"Electric Head – The Ecstasy," he says as he reaches into his duffel bag.

He pulls out two rolls of washers. Fistloads?

"It's for the other part of my Stand's ability," he explains.

"Guns blazing?" asks Reynalle with a wicked sneer on her face.

"Calm down. I know you Fallen hate the devils almost as much as you hate the angels, but there are hundreds of innocent lives at stake," says Akihiko.

The argument is settled when we hear screaming from outside.

"I have an idea," Matej says, opening the window, "Let's head to the roof. I can use Electric Head's powers to stick to the roof. Issei doesn't have to worry about falling as long as he has a shadow. What about you two?"

"I can fly," Reynalle explains.

"I'll manage," Akihiko says with a grin.

"I'll handle the corridor. Slim Shady is better out in a closed space."

I'm just scared of falling off.

I pass under the door and peak around through the small sliver of shadow. Then, I bring out the rest of me. Before me stand Rias Gremory, Akeno Himejima. Behind them are Yuuto Kiba and the underclassmen Koneko Toujou. Kuoh Academy was probably the coolest fucking place on earth. Or it would have been if I had any idea that baller supernatural beings hung out there. Shit, I missed out. Awaken sleeper. Take the red pill. Et cetera, et altera.

And they aren't dressed in their school uniforms. Not that I mind the uniforms, but I was half expecting them, like if my life were some sort of bizarre anime, to be wearing them. On that note, I ought to write an autobiography of this shit and get some studio to adapt it. Too bad otaku wouldn't like it because I actually get the girl.

"Issei, this cab is empty," says Matej, "We're the only bioelectricity sources here."

"What sort of people do you think we are?" asks Rias, tossing her hair, "We aren't cowards like that."

Bang. A supersonic crack. A whipping wind. The floor splinters.

"That will be my only warning," Matej says.

I look back and see the washers lazily floating around him. I see. That's what Electric Head can do.

Torn metal shrieks. A sword slices through the roof of the compartment. An evil blade. Something vile about it. And that is the weapon that Yuuto uses to attack and parry Reynalle's lance. He charges after the Fallen Angel, only to be slammed by Pretender's barrage of warning tape. He goes flying off into the Russian countryside.

"Koneko, would you please help Yuuto," orders Rias, leaving Matej and me to face Akeno and Rias.

I'd kind of like to fight with Reynalle for once. At least Kazemi is married. Regardless, time to not die. Maybe even win.

"Ara ara, a fellow lightning user," says Akeno, "They call me the Thunder Priestess."

The blazing skull laughs or screams behind him.

"I'm Matej Radic, but I doubt you're familiar with the Croatian mafia –"

What the fuck! Why does everyone else get a cool backstory?

"If you don't come now, I'll beat you into coming home with me," the crimson devil declares.

Boy is she cute. Those oppai are just perfect. Distracted me every day in math class. Now, unleashed from the confines of a school uniform in that very slavic tracksuit and tank top, I can see them almost as they were meant to be seen. This isn't the appropriate time for such observations, but I've got to stay true to form.

The air burns with the scent of ozone as wicked tongues of flashing lightning shoot forth at Matej. He walks out unscathed, having intercepted the bolts with several of his levitating washers.

"Take this, the Power of Destruction."

Bright redblack spheres of utter annihilation pop into existence. Fuck me. If my poorly tuned spiritual senses can tell just how badly they will fuck me if I connect, this is really bad. Before I really attack, I must assess the parameters of her abilities.

Slim Shady sails silently across the void and rises out of her shadow. No attacks. Just something to spook her. To test her concentration. I want to know if those things go out of control if her attention is divided.

"What is that?"

She spins around as he dances in her shadows. The orbs didn't budge an inch. This is either good or bad, but I feel safe interrupting her.

Time to attack.

Shady rains blows upon her from all directions. My battlecry rings out.

"Ora! Ora! Ora!"

I don't know where it came from. I don't know why I shouted it out. It felt natural. A warcry history of great deeds behind it. Just like the German 'Gott mit Uns' or the Finnish 'Hakka palle.' Banzai, motherfucker.

The orbs of destruction swing back like planets on a degrading orbit. Aimed at Shady. That's okay. I've got another trick up my sleeve. Slim Shady gracefully dances through the shadows. Weaving around the orbs with frustrating precision (for her). She swings. It should have connected. It doesn't. Slim Shady isn't there any more. There's just a moment of surprise. It's enough. My Stand grabs Rias's ankles and drag her into her own shadow. I figure I'll leave her there until she's unconscious. At that point, I can just deposit her somewhere safe and run away. It's not like I actually want her dead. She said that didn't me dead either. I'm cool with that in the bizarre adventure of my life.

I have a strange life.

Matej and Akeno trade shots down the aisle. A cloud of bolts, washers, rivets, and pieces of the roof orbit him. Blow for blow, shot for shot, supersonic scrap and lightning meet, peppering the walls with shrapnel. While Matej's shots are instant, they are merely supersonic. Akeno's bolts, while they take charging, strike instantly. They are matched. She will not approach. He can't advance. Stalemate, bloody stalemate.

"Hey, Matej!"

"Yeah, Issei," he says, sweating from the heat unleashed in the tight space.

"You need to get close to use the Ecstasy, right?"

"I do."

"Alpha strike, and I'll get you close."

We grin, and bump fists. Time to attack. We already rolled up two devils. Time for number three. Bang-bang-bang-bang-bang. Every piece of scrap shoots at the beautiful Himejima. Of course, lightning surges and thunder roars in its wake. The two forces collide, but that's only a distraction

I grab Matej and dive into a shadow. I'm not picky. Really. There is a heartbeat of darkness before we exit at the other end: a shadow from the hole in the roof behind Himejima. We roll out. Before she can turn around, the Thunder Priestess freezes like she were playing a game of red light-green light.

"Got you!" exclaims the Croat.

"Damn you," the raven-haired beauty hisses.

"Be thankful I'm not stopping your heart," he warns.

Then, with the facial control Matej's Stand allows her, Akeno smirks.

Everything goes to hell.

It starts when Reynalle smashes through the roof. The tiny Koneko is straddling her and generally beating the shit out of the Grigori. However, the cute underclassmen is bleeding and scorched in some places. Even in this situation, Reynalle pounds back with her own fists. Those blows would tear me in half. Akihiko is a blur of motion followed by Yuuto Kiba's golden streak as they almost fly. He has copied one of the boy's demonic swords, but in this exchange, it shatters. The shards become wavy and disappear like mirages. As if they never were.

Fuck.

The heavens darken. I look at the smirking Akeno. We've got to get out. I tackle Matej as a scorching blast of lightning smashes into Akeno. We would have been immolated.

"Tell me," she asks, voice low and serious, "Did you genuinely think I needed to move around to call down lightning against you."

"It was worth a shot," Matej admits.

"Stop it," I say, "I have Rias trapped. By this point, she's probably unconscious. If you want her back safe, let us be."

"Again with the assumptions," says Akeno, more sweetly and more patronizing, "Do you really think that there is any prison in existence the Power of Destruction cannot tear down."

Reality is torn asunder. Looking at it hurts my mortal eyes. Then, in a blast of ripping reality, Rias Gremory tears herself from the void. Even now, she still looks chipper.

"I wasn't trying to kill you, I swear."

"I understand, but we've just beaten the best you've got. Give up. We don't even want your friends."

I slowly step towards her. No sudden moves. Slow is smooth. And smooth is sexy.

"Do you promise to keep them out of this if I come with you?"

I pause. I know what I want to say. Can I say it? Have I changed that much?

"Even if I'm an abomination that must be destroyed, I'll accept execution if it keeps them safe."

"There's no need to worry about that sort of thing. You have my word as a princess."

Every time. Everyone else is so much cooler than I am. Fuck. I just can't compete.

Whump-whump-whump. Something churns the air. Okay, cool.

Then, Agnus Dei starts blasting. I look up. Holy fucking shit, is that a honest-to-god Hind gunship. It really is. My life is now a James Bond movie. I look at the crudely repainted insignia. A pair of crossed keys and a miter. Oh joy, we are saved thanks to the valorous efforts of the Vatican Air Force.

"And shepherds we shall be for thee, my Lord, for thee Power hath descended forth from thy hand Our feet may swiftly carry out thy commands So we shall flow a river to thee–"

Two blurs slam through the roof and onto the floor. Flashing crosses. Gleaming steel. Two beautiful girls in black leotards advance. One has short blue hair and golden eyes. The other is a real cutie with auburn twintails.

"And full of souls ever it shall be."

The prayer finishes. My eyes are drawn to those blades. They exude a sense of peace and righteousness. All the hopes of mankind. Swords of promised victory. Of death to the wicked and the takes the form of an elegant katana. The other is brutal. It's more halberd than sword, with a claymore blade attached to two-headed battle axe. A long spike protrudes from its lengthy pommel. Another blade is drawn. A long butcher's knife of blue steel, as wide as a man is thick. Its golden edge flashes keenly.

"Issei? Is that you? I can't believe that you're at the center of this," says the auburn girl.

Irina Shidou.

"Irina. It's been years. It's, um, nice to see you too."

She looks at the motley crew with which I have surrounded myself. Reynalle in particular. Wait, that means that she is part of the Catholic hit squad. And Reynalle is a Fallen Angel. Those two groups can't get along.

"Don't worry, Issei. We're here to help."

Then, they clash. The blue girl surges forward, holy sword filled with destructive power. It clashes with Yuuto's demonic sword. Then, a wave of power smashes down. Almost like a rocket booster on the end of her sword. Crash. The tinkling sound of metal shards falling to earth. That monster of a holy sword shattered his demonic blade in a single blow.

I don't care. I hear the sounds of battle as they clash with apocalyptic fury. There! Reynalle is unguarded. I sink into my shadow and reappear by her side. Her face is swollen and her body bruised. But she still smiles.

"I'll have you know that I dished out as much pain as I took," Reynalle whispers.

"I know. You kick ass," I say, slinging her over my shoulder.

Her wings wrap around me like a hug. Her softening visage tells that this is intentional. We journey through the shadows until we are back across the zone of carnage.

"You're coming out of these things better than me," she says.

"No, I'm just using my head so as not to be turned into strawberry jam."

She gives me a quick kiss. I stand up. Akihiko puts his hand on my shoulder. He's more hurt than I am! Matej flashes me a smile.

Whump-whump-whump.

The Vatican Air Force is here to help. I can't believe this is happening. I can see the gunpod slewing around at the melee. It's loud. My ears are ringing like gongs. Action movies and video games in no way prepared me for the noise of a real gun. The roar is like thick cloth being ripped.

High caliber bullets tear through what remains of the wall. Little bits of wood and metal fly in swarm of tiny shrapnel.

"Get to the chopper!" yells the blue-haired girl between wielding a pair of swords bigger than she is.

I don't need anyone to tell me twice.

"Huddle up," I call, spying a shadow in the troop compartment.

They circle up with me. A breath. Then we drop into frigid darkness. The sensation is only momentary as we pass into the compartment.

"This is Archangel. Package received," radios the pilot, "Paladins, you are clear to return."

I don't know what I was expecting, sitting inside the uncomfortable drab interior of a Soviet war machine, but I wasn't expecting them to bodily leap from the train and into the bay. Everything starts to rattle as the pilot guns it.

All in all, a terrible day.

"Issei, you're in safe hands now," says Irina, "This is Xenovia, another holy sword wielder; and we're here to escort you to the Vatican."

"I never knew you were a holy knight, Irina," I say, unable to resist a boyish grin.

"It's been years, and you've been leading an interesting life yourself."

I nod. Fair enough.

"You two know each other?" queries Xenovia, appraising me with an intense glare.

"We were childhood friends," we say in unintentional synchronization.

Then we laugh. Then everybody laughs. I feel a slithering snake of doubt worm its way through my guts. Someone important in the Church wants to meet me. Me! This can't be good given my track record with large, ominous groups, but I'll keep an open mind.

All in all, it's not that bad. It was an adventure.


End file.
